
Pass Dij /^ 
Book >UC r 



COUNSELS TO YOUNG MEN 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER, 



THE PRINCIPLES WHICH LEAD TO SUCCESS AND HAPPI- 
NESS IN LIFE ; 



ADDRESSES 

PRINCIPALLY DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVeRSARY COMMEIfCB* 
MENTS IN UNION COLLEGE. 



BY ELIPHALET NOTT, D.D., 

PRKSIDKNT OF UNION COLLEGE, 




/^ISTEW YORK: ^'^ 

PARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

329 & 331 PEARL STREET, 
FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1856. 






flutered, acconnng w acv of Congress, in tne year l&IO, b» 

MakPEH & liKOTHKHS, 

In the Clerk's Officn of the SouLhern District of New-York. 



PUBLISHERS* ADVEETISEMENT. 



The great experience of the venerable author of 
these addresses as an instructor and guardian of 
youth, gives a value to his counsels which can be 
best appreciated by those whose happiness it has 
been to be trained to knowledge and virtue under 
his paternal guidance and care. To those, and 
the number is not small, who have gone forth 
from the halls of Union to honour their alma mater 
by their conduct in life, this volume must be pecu- 
liarly acceptable. Nor will the discourses it con- 
tains be read with scarcely less interest by others ; 
being replete with sound moral and religious in- 
struction, and written with all the originality, ear- 
nestness, and eloquence so characteristic of their 
able and excellent author. By young men, espe- 
cially, they may be made of invaluable use, in di- 
recting them to the adoption of such principles as 



VI PUBLISHERS ADVERTISEMENT. 

will lead to prosperity and happiness in this world, 
to the favour of God, and the assurance of a bet- 
ter inheritance in the world to come. 

A few of the discourses in the series, although 
delivered on special occasions, and differing from 
the others in their leading design, will be found 
full of important information and the most striking 
views, in relation to subjects deeply interesting to 
every Christian mind. The publishers would also 
state, that, by permission of the author, a brief 
table of contents has been prefixed to each dis- 
course for the convenience of the reader. 

H.&B. 

New-York, October, 1840 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

Sanguine Anticipations of the Young. — Education should b« 
the Business of Life. — Duty of controlling and subjugating 
the Passions. — Of cultivating and cherishing the Sympathies 
of our Nature. — Of practising Justice, and adhering scrupu- 
lously to Truth. — Rehgion inseparable from our Nature.— 
Christianity: its Character, Effects, Objects, Encourage- 
ments, and Rewards Page 13 

II. 

Nature of Man threefold : Sensitive, Intellectual, and Moral. — 
Pleasures of Sense : lawful and innocent in themselves, and 
forbidden and pernicious only when sinfully and excessively 
indulged. — Intellectual Pleasures : their elevated, refined, and 
durable Character. — Man's Moral Nature, and the Responsi- 
bilities derived from it. — Virtue alone leads to Happiness. — 
The duty of judging charitably of others : of avoiding Slan- 
der.— Claims of Parents upon their Children . . .26 

III. 

The Young require to be specially cautioned against the pre- 
dominant Vices of the Day. — Spirit of mutual Injury, Re- 
crimination, and Revenge, characteristic of the Times. — Def 
inition of Revenge, and its wicked and odious Character de- 
scribed.— Private Revenge forbidden by the Divine Law, and 
Vengeance declared to belong to God alone. — Under what cir« 
cumstances, and how far we may resist personal Injuries. — 
False and true Honour. — The Practice of Duelling, its sinful- 
ness and awful consequences.— Christian Treatment of Ene- 
mies. — An arrogant, ambitious, and revengeful Disposition in 
the last degree hateful in a Christian Minister. — The Char- 
acter of the Saviour, his Precepts, and perfect Example, 
teach us how we should at all times act under Injuries . 43 

IV. 

Two opposite Systems offered to our Acceptance, the one found- 
ed on Human Rea^on^ the other on piyine /Jwc/afi^n.— Man, 



Vm CONTENTS. 

by his own Wisdom, never has, nor ever can have a true and 
proper Conception of God. — Contradictory, false, and unwor- 
thy Notions entertained by the wisest of the Ancients in re- 
gard to the Nature and Attributes of the Supreme Being, theii 
confused and erroneous Ideas as to Virtue and Vice, and the 
gross Immorality of their Lives. — The Appearance of Chris- 
tianity in the World dispelled the Darkness and Delusion that 
had before universally prevailed, and brought in a new Era 
of Light, and Hope, and of pure and perfect Morals. — The 
Simplicity and Purity of the Christian System soon corrupted 
by being incorporated with the Errors of the ancient Philos- 
ophy. — Modern Infidelity, and the pernicious and absurd 
Doctrines on which it is founded.— Skeptical System of Hume 
(see Note). — Infidelity and Christianity, in their Character, 
Moral Effects, and ultimate Results, contrasted.— The Chris- 
tian alone can have Hope in Death, and Assurance of a blessed 
Immortality Page 64 

V. 

Painful Feelings of Teachers in parting from their Pupils. — 
Responsibility of Teachers. — Constant Succession of Actors 
on the Stage of Life.— Motives held out to the Young to act 
their part well. — Discouragements to an honourable Ambition 
removed. — The Examples of Howard, Sharpe, Clarkson, and 
Lancaster. — A mixture of virtuous and vicious Characters in 
the World. — The Practice of Virtue, even as it regards this 
Life, to be preferred. — But there is a God : Man is accountable 
and immortal, and should act with constant reference to these 
great Truths.— Concluding Exhortation . , . ,78 

VI. 

The Moral, no less than the Physical World, subject to convul- 
sions and changes.— The present an age of Political Revolu- 
tions.— Our Country involved in the contentions of Nations. 
— Importance of the Era in which we live.— The hopes of 
Society in the rising Generation.— Knowledge is Power.— Tht 
Savage and the civihzed Man compared.— The dommion of 
Mind, as exhibited in the general and statesman— in the ex- 
ample of ancient Athens.— Encouragements to Perseverance 
in the pursuit of Intellectual Superiority.— Examples of Ho- 
mer and Demosthenes.— Power beneficent only when associ- 
ated with Goodness.— Human Endowments should be con- 
secrated to Religious and Moral ends. — Nature of Civil Gov- 
ernment, and duty of Obedience to it.— Exhortation to de« 



CONTENTS. IX 

fend the free Institutions of our Country. — ^Whatever Triali 
befall the Christian here, his Reward is sure hereafter 

Page 97 

VIL 

hove of Distinction. — Honour and Religion, though distinct* 
are allied to each other. — Modern definition of the Law of 
Honour. — Fallacies of this Definition exposed. — A sense of 
Honour in different degrees operative on all Minds except the 
most debased. — The offices of this Feeling and of Conscience 
contrasted. — Purpose for which the Sense of Honour was im- 
planted in the human breast. — Its Perversion an abuse. — Dig- 
nity of Man, and the lofty distinction conferred on him by his 
Maker. — His Fall and Recovery. — His Rank, Capacities, Pa- 
rentage, and Destination, all call upon him to persevere in a 
steady Course of honourable Action, in his Amusements, his 
Pleasures, and his Occupations. — Dignity of the good Man in 
his last moments. — All false and deceptive appearances will 
be exposed in a future state ; and those only who are truly 
and sincerely good will be accounted w^orthy of acceptance 
and honour Ill 

VIII. 

Public Opinion as opposed to the Moral Law. — Games of 
Chance. — Objectionable because they unprofitably consume 
Time. — Because they lead to a misapplication of Property. — 
Because they impart no Expansion or Vigour to the Mind.— 
Because their Influence on the Affections and Passions is del- 
eterious. — Dreadful Effect of Gaming on Morals and on the 
Sympathies of our Nature. — It leads to Debauchery, to Ava 
rice, to Intemperance. — The finished Gambler has no Heart. 
— Example of Madame du Deffand. — Brutalized and hopeless 
State of the Gambler and Drunkard. — Warning to Youth to 
avoid the Temptations which lead to these soul-destroying 
Vices 128 



IX. 

Skeptical Notions in regard to the Providence of God, and his re- 
tributive Justice. — The condition of the Virtuous and Vicious in 
this World affords no argument against the position that God 
will reward the one and punish the other. — A future State of 
Existence is certain, and must be taken into account in judging 
of the Character and Designs of God.— The inward Peace en- 
joyed by the Virtuous, and the Trouble and Remorse expeii- 



X CONTENTS. 

enced by the Vicious, indications of God's Moral Govern 
ment. — The Trials of the Righteous intended to exalt and pu- 
rify their Character. — Consolations of the Righteous in the 
view of Death, and the Happiness that awaits them in a fu- 
ture State of Being Page 147 

X. 

Instabihty of all earthly Things.— Motives to early Piety.— 
Filial Love and Gratitude. — Parental Affection. — Anxiety of 
Parents to promote the Happiness of their Children.— Chris- 
tian Parents. — Instructions of Solomon. — Early Piety inter- 
esting in itself. — Leads to Happiness. — Joy of Christian Pa- 
rents in pious Children, in Life and in Death.— Example of a 
pious Child. — The Good on Earth and the Angels in Heaven 
rejoice over Souls converted from Sin to Righteousness. — 
Union of Parents and Children in Heaven , . . 159 

XL 

Effects of the Apostacy. — Man vainly seeks for Happiness in 
Riches — in Power — in Wisdom. — Man's boasted Wisdom 
considered — in the Philosophy of Mind — in the Philosophy of 
Matter. — Chymistry. — The Microscope. — Astronomy. — The 
Telescope. — The Fixed Stars. — True Wisdom consists in the 
Knowledge of God. — Pagan and Christian Theology, in their 
Character and Effects, compared. — The Bible the source of 
the most precious Knowledge.— To be truly Wise is to under- 
stand the great Truths which it reveals, and comply with its 
Requirements 179 

XII. 

Absolute Independence predicable only of God.— The Relations 
between Parents and Children. — A foohsh Son a Grief to his 
Father. — Sin the greatest of all Folly. — The Sinner's Charac- 
ter and Course described. — The Effects of Sin.— Children 
growing up in Sin.— The Prodigal Son.— The Anguish occa- 
sioned to Parents by dissolute Children. — Their Affliction in 
leaving such Children behind them.— Their Hopelessness 
in the Death of such Children.— David and Absalom. — The 
Petition of Dives.— Future Stat 3 of the Wicked.— Close oi 
the Argument 206 



CONTENTS. XI 

XIII. 

ill wish to Die with the Assurance of Happiness hereafter.-— 
As Youth is the most important, it is also the most danger- 
ous Period of Life.— Rehgion only can guard against the 
Temptations incident to this Period. — The Example of Jo- 
siah.— All Men mean to repent of their Sins. — Danger of 
delaying Repentance — from the uncertainty of Life and of 
the continued possession of Reason— from the hardening ef- 
fects of Perseverance in Sin — from being left to a Reprobate 
Mind Page 226 

XIV. 

Character and Design of the Bible Society. — Christian Com- 
munities do not sufficiently appreciate their indebtedness to 
the Bible.— Nearly all that is pure in Morals or kmdly in Feel- 
ing derived from it.— In the first Ages of the World, God's 
Communications to Man were direct, and were perpetuated 
and extended by Tradition. — The early Longevity of Mankind 
favourable to this. — The Traditions and Institutions of heathen 
Nations coincide with and confirm the sacred Records of the 
Jews. — Divine Revelation and the Speculations of human 
Reason, as exhibited in their different Effects. — Dreadful 
Moral Corruption of the heathen World. — Influence of Chris- 
tianity in ameliorating the Condition and Morals of Mankind. 
— Unspeakable importance of Divine Revelation in regard to 
a future State. — The duty of Christians to extend it to all 
Nations 240 

XV. 

Difference in the Intellectual and Moral Condition of Individ- 
uals and Nations. — Ignorance and Knowledge the principal 
Causes of this Difference. — Advantages of Associated Efforts 
in promoting Science.— Intelligence and Happiness capable 
of being vastly extended. — First crude Discoveries in Sci- 
ence contrasted with the Progress since made. — Present State 
and future Prospects of Scientific Research. — Chymistry. — 
Astronomy. — Mineralogy and Botany. — Meteorology. — Elec- 
tricity. — Medicine. — Political Science. — Popular Govern- 
ments.— The United States.— Anomaly of domestic Slavery, 
in its Origin, &c., considered. — Ameliorations in our Institu- 
tions and Laws in regard to Debtors — to Criminals.— Reli- 
gious Freedom. — Multiplicity of Religious Sects not incom- 
patible with Christian Union. — Science and Religion recipro- 
caliy aid each other, and should never be disunited « 275 



ADDRESSES. 



DELIVERED MAY 1, 1805. 

[Sanguine Anticipations of the Young. — Education should be 
the Business of Life. — Duty of controlling and subjugating 
the Passions.— Of cultivating and cherishing the Sympathies 
of our Nature. — Of practising Justice, and adhering scrupu- 
lously to Truth. — Rehgion inseparable from our Nature. — 
Christianity: its Character, Efiects, Objects, Encourage- 
ments, and Rewards.] 

Young gentlemen, this day closes your collegiate 
life. You have continued the term and completed 
the course of studies prescribed in this institution. 
You have received its honours, and are now to go 
forth adventurers- — unsuspecting, perhaps, and cer- 
tainly inexperienced — into a fascinating but illusive 
world : a world where honour flaunts in fictitious 
trappings ; where wealth displays imposing charms, 
and pleasure spreads her impoisoned banquets. 
And that, too, at a period when the passions are most 
ungovernable, when the fancy is most vivid, when 
the blood flows rapidly through the veins, and the 
pulse of life beats high. Already does the opening 
scene brighten as you approach it ; and happiness, 
smiling but deceitful, passes before your eyes and 
beckons you to her embrace. 

Called to address you at this affecting crisis, and 



14 KNOWLEDGE. 

for the last time, had I, like the patriarch of the East, 
a blessing at my disposal, how gladly should I be- 
stow it. But I have not ; and can therefore only 
add to the solicitude which I feel, my counsel and 
my prayers. 

Permit me to advise you, then, young gentlemen, 
when you leave this seminary, and even after you 
shall have chosen a profession and entered on the 
business of life, still to consider yourselves only 
learners. Your acquirements here, though respect- 
able, are the rudiments merely of an education 
which must be hereafter pursued and completed. 
In the acquisition of knowledge you are never to be 
stationary, but always progressive. Nature has no- 
/ where said to man, pressing forward in the career 
^of intellectual glory, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but 
/ no farther." Under God, therefore, it depends upon 
yourselves to say how great, how wise, how useful 
you will be. Men of moderate talents, by a course 
of patient application, have often risen to the highest 
eminence, and, standing far above where the mo- 
mentary sallies of uncultivated genius ever reach, 
have plucked from the lofty cliff the deathless lau- 
rel. Indeed, to the stature of the mind no boundary 
is set. Your bodies, originally from the earth, soon 
reach their greatest elevation, and bend downward 
again towards that earth out of which they were 
taken. But the inner man, that sublime, that ra- 
tional, that immortal inhabitant which pervades your 
bosoms, if sedulously fostered, will expand and ele- 
vate itself, till, touching the earth, it can look above 
the clouds and reach beyond the stars. 



THE PASSIONS. 15 

Go, then, and, emulous to excel in whatever is 
splendid, magnanimous, and great, with Newton, 
span the heavens, and number and measure the orbs 
which decorate them ; with Locke, analyze the hu- 
man mind ; with Boyle, examine the regions of or- 
ganic nature : in one word, go, and with the great, 
the wise, and the good of all nations and all ages, 
ponder the mysteries of Infinite Wisdom, and trace 
the Everlasting in his word and in his works. A 
wide and unbounded prospect spreads itself before 
you, in every point of which Divinity shines con- 
spicuous ; and on whichever side you turn your en- 
raptured eyes, surrounded with uncreated majesty, 
and seen in the light of his own glory, God appears. 
He leads the way before you, and sheds radiance 
on his path, that you may follow him. 

Control and subjugate your passions, — Origin- 
ally order pervaded human nature. The bosom of 
man was calm, his countenance serene. Reason 
sat enthroned in his heart, and to her control the 
passions were subjected. But the days of inno- 
cence are past, and with them has also passed the 
reign of reason. Phrensy ensues. He who was 
once calm and rational is now blind and impetuous. 
A resistless influence impels him. Consequences 
are disregarded, and, madly pressing forward to the 
object of desire, he exclaims, " My honour, my 
property, my pleasure ;" but is never heard to say, 
" My religion, my duty, my salvation.'"* 

While reason maintained her empire, the passions 
were a genial flame, imparting warmth to the sys- 
* See Saurir on the Passions. 



16 THE SYMPATHIES. 

tern, and gently accelerating the circulation of the 

, blood. But, that empire subverted, they kindle into 

\ a Vesuvius, burning to its centre, and pouring out 

I on every side its desolating lava. The passions^ 

said an inspired apostle, war against the soul ; and 

the same apostle who said this commands you to 

overcome them. 

Cultivate and cherish the sympathies of your 
nature. — These, though blighted by the apostacy, 
still retain the tints of faded loveliness ; and when 
sanctified in the heart and unfolded in the life even 
of fallen man, they possess a resistless charm, and 
furnish some faint idea of what he must have been 
in a state of innocence. 

For the exercise of these sympathies in all the 
paths of life, you will meet with pitiable objects, 
who will present their miseries to your eye, and ad- 
dress the moving eloquence of sorrow to your heart. 
Always listen to this eloquence ; always pity this 
misery, and, if possible, relieve it. Yes, young gen- 
tlemen, whatever seas you may navigate, or to what- 
ever part of the habitable world you may travel, car- 
ry with you your humanity. Even there divide your 
morsel with the destitute ; advocate the cause of 
the oppressed ; to the fatherless be a father, and 
cover the shivering limbs of the naked with your 
mantle. Even there sooth the disconsolate, sym- 
pathize with the mourner, brighten the countenance 
bedimmed with sorrow, and, like the God of mercy, 
shed happiness around you, and banish miser^ be- 
fore you. 

In all your intercourse iviih mankind^ rigidly 



TRUTH AND JUSTICE. 17 

practise justice and scrupulously adhere to truth : 
other duties vary with varying circumstances. What 
would be hberality in one man would be parsimony 
in another : what would be valour on one occasion 
would be temerity on another ; but truth and justice 
are immutable and eternal principles — always sa- / 
cred and always applicable. In no circumstances, 
however urgent, no crisis, however awful, can there 
be an aberration from the one, or a dereliction of 
the other, without sin. With respect to everything 
else, be accommodating ; but here, be unyielding 
and invincible. Rather carry your integrity to the 
dungeon or the scaffold than receive in exchange for 
it liberty and life. Should you ever be called upon 
to make your election between these extremes, do 
not hesitate. It is better prematurely to be sent to 
heaven in honour, than, having lingered on the earth, 
at last to sink to hell in infamy. In every situa- 
tion, a dishonest man is detestable, and a liar is still 
more so. 

I have often, young gentlemen, recommended to 
you a sacred adherence to truth. I would on this 
occasion repeat the recommendation, that I may fix 
it the more indelibly on your hearts. Believe me 
when I tell you, that on this article you can never 
be too scrupulous. 

Truth is one of the fairest attributes of the Deity, 
It is the boundary which separates vice from virtue ; 
the line which divides heaven from hell. It is the 
chain which binds the man of integri^v to the throne 
of God ; and, like the God to whose throne it binds 
him, till this chain is dissolved his word may be re- 



18 RELIGION. 

lied on. Suspended on this, your property, your 
reputation, your life are safe. But against the mal- 
ice of a liar there is no security. He can be bound 
by nothing. His soul is already repulsed to an im- 
measurable distance from that Divinity, a sense of 
whose presence is the security of virtue. He has 
sundered the last of those moral ligaments which 
bind a mortal to his duty. And, having done so 
through the extended region of fraud and falsehood, 
without a bond to check or a limit to confine him, 
he ranges, the dreaded enemy of innocence — whose 
lips pollute even truth itself as it passes through 
them, and whose breath blasts, and soils, and poi- 
sons as it touches. 

Finally, cherish and practise religion, — Man has 
been called, in distinction from the inferior orders 
of creation, a religious being, and justly so called. 
For, though his hopes and fears may be repressed, 
and the moral feelings of his heart stifled for a sea- 
son, nature, like a torrent which has been obstructed, 
will break forth and sweep away those frail barriers 
which skepticism may have erected to divert its 
course. 

There is something so repulsive in naked infidel- 
ity, that the mind approaches it with reluctance, 
shrinks back from it with horror, and is never set- 
tled till it rests on positive religion. 

I am aware that that spirit of devotion, that sense 
of guilt and dread of punishment, which pervade 
the human mind, have been attributed to the force 
of habit or the influence of superstition. Let the 
appeal be made to human nature. To the position 



RELIGION. 19 

of irreligionists on this article, human natvre itself 
furnishes the most satisfactory refutation. Religion 
is a first principle of man. It shoots up from the 
very seat of life ; it cleaves to the human constitu- 
tion by a thousand ligaments ; it entwines around 
human nature, and sends to the very bottom of the 
heart its penetrating tendrils. It cannot, therefore, 
be exterminated. The experiment has again and 
again been tried, and the result has always proved 
worthy of the rash attempt. 

Young as you are, you have witnessed, with a 
view to this extermination, the most desperate ef- 
forts. But just now a formidable host of infuriate 
infidels were assembled. You heard them openly 
abjure their God. You saw them wreaking their 
vengeance on religion. For a season they triumph- 
ed. Before them every sacred institution disap- 
peared, every consecrated monument fell to dust. 
The fervours of nature were extinguished, and the 
lip of devotion palsied by their approach. With 
one hand they seized the thunders of the heavens, 
and with the other smote His throne who inhabits 
them. It seemed to crumble at the stroke. Mount- 
ing these fancied ruins, Blasphemy waved its ter- 
rific sceptre, and, impiously looking up to those eter- 
nal heights where the Deity resides, exclaimed, 
" Victory !" 

Where now are those dreaded enemies of our 
religion? They have vanished from the sight. 
They were, but are seen no more. Nor have the 
consequences of their exertions been more abiding. 
A. great nation, indeed, delivered from the restraints 



(h 



20 



RELIGION. 



of moral obligation, and enfranchised with all the 
liberties of infidelity, were proclaimed free. But 
have they continued so 1 No : their minds pres- 
ently recoiled from the dismal waste which skepti- 
cism had opened before them, and the cheerless 
darkness it had spread around them. They sud- 
denly arrested their steps ; they retraced, in sadness 
and sorrow, the paths which they had trodden ; they 
consecrated again the temples they had defiled ; 
they rebuilt the altars they had demolished ; they 
sighed for the return of that religion they had ban- 
ished, and spontaneously promised submission to its 
reign. 

What are we to infer from this 1 That religion 
is congenial to human nature ; that it is inseparable 
from it. A nation may be seduced into skepticism, 
but it cannot be continued in it. Why, I would 
ask, has religion existed in the world in ages which 
are past? why does it exist now? why will it exist 
in ages to come ? Is it because kings have ordain- 
ed and priests defended it ? No : but because 
God formed man to be religious. Its great and 
eternal principles are inscribed on his heart ; they 
are inscribed in characters which are indelible ; nor 
can the violence of infidelity blot them out. Ob- 
scured indeed they may be by the influence of sin, 
and remain not legible during the rage of passion. 
But a calm ensues : the calm of reason or the 
night of adversity, from the midst of whose darkness 
a light proceeds, which renders the original inscrip- 
tion visible. Man now turns his eye inward upon 
himself. He reads " Responsibility ;" and, as he 



RELIGION. 21 

reauis, he feels a sense of sin and dread of pun- 
ishment. He now pays, from necessity, homage to 
religion — a homage which cannot be withheld : it is 
the homage of his nature. We have now traced 
the effect to its cause, and referred this abiding trait 
in the human character to its principle. 

The question is not, then, whether you will em- 
brace religion — religion you must embrace — but 
whether you will embrace revealed religion, or that 
of erring and blind philosophy. And, with respect 
to this question, can you hesitate 1 

The former has infinitely more to recommend it 
than the latter. It originated in heaven. It is 
founded, not on conjecture, but on fact. Divinity 
manifested itself in the person, and shone in the life 
of its Author. True, he appeared in great humility ; 
but though the humility in which he appeared had 
been greater than it was, either the sublimity of his 
doctrines or the splendour of his actions had been 
sufficient to evince his Messiahship, and prove that 
he was the Saviour of the world. He spoke as 
man never spoke ! Whence did he derive wisdom 
so transcendant ? From reason ? No : reason 
could not give it, for it had it not to give. What 
reason could never teach, the gospel teaches — that 
in the vast and perfect government of the universe, 
vicarious sufferings can be accepted; and that the 
dread Sovereign who administers that government 
is gracious as well as just. Nor does it rest in dec- 
laration merely. It exhibits before our eyes the 
altar and the victim — the Lamb of God, which ta- 
keth away the sins of the world. 



22 CHRISTIANITY. 

The introduction of Christianity was called the 
coming of the kingdom of Heaven. No terms 
could have been more appropriate ; for through it 
man shared the mercy, and from it caught the spirit 
of the heavens. The moral gloom which shrouded 
the nations receded before it. The temples of su- 
perstition and of cruelty, consecrated by its entrance, 
became the asylums of the wretched, and resounded 
with their anthems of grace. 

Most benign has been the influence of Chris- 
tianity ; and were it cordially received and univer- 
sally submitted to, war would cease, injustice be 
banished, and primeval happiness revisit the earth. 
Every inhabitant, pleased with his situation, resigned 
to his lot, and full of the hopes of heaven, would 
pass agreeably through life, and meet death without 
a sigh. 

Is the morality of the gospel pre-eminently ex- 
cellent 1 So is its object pre-eminently glorious. 
Philosophy confines its views to this world princi- 
pally. It endeavours to satisfy man with the grov- 
elling joys of earth, till he returns to that dust out 
of which he was taken. Christianity takes a nobler 
flight. Her course is directed towards immortality. 
Thither she conducts her votary, and never forsakes 
him till, having introduced him into the society of 
angels, she fixes his eternal residence among the 
spirits of the just. 

Philosophy can only heave a sigh, a longing sigh, 
after immortality. Eternity is to her an unknown 
vast, over which she soars on conjecture's trembling 
wing. Above, beneath, around* is an unfathoiijable 



CHRISTIANITY. 23 

void ; and doubt, uncertainly, or despair is the re- 
sult of all her inquiries. 

Christianity, on the other hand, having furnished 
all necessary information concerning life, with firm 
and undaunted step crosses death's narrow isthmus, 
and boldly launches forth into that dread futurity 
which borders on it. Her path is marked with 
glory. The once dark, dreary region brightens 
as she approaches it, and benignly smiles as she 
passes over it. Faith follows where she advances ; 
till, reaching the summit of everlasting hills, an un- 
known scene, in endless varieties of loveliness and 
beauty, presents itself, over which the ravished eye 
wanders, without a cloud to dim or a limit to ob- 
struct its sight. In the midst of this scene, render- 
ed luminous by the glory which covers it, the city, 
the palace, the throne of God appears. Trees of 
life surround it ; rivers of salvation issue from be- 
neath it. Before it, angels touch their harps of 
hving melody, and saints, in sweet response, breathe 
forth their grateful songs. The redeemed of the 
Lord who remain upon the earth, catch the distant 
sound and feel a sudden rapture. 'Tis the voice 
of departed friendship — friendship, the loss of which 
they mourn upon the earth, but which they are now 
assured will be restored in the heavens — from 
whence a voice is heard to say, " Fear ye not, death 
cannot injure you ; the grave cannot confine you ; 
through its chill mansion, Grace will conduct you 
up to glory. We wait your arrival : haste, there- 
fore, come away." All this Christianity will do for 
you. It will do more than this • it consecrates tixe 



24 CHRISTIANITY. 

sepulchre, into which your bodies, already touched 
by death, will presently descend. There, moulder- 
ed into dust, your flesh shall rest in hope. Nor 
will the season of its humiliation last for ever. 
Christianity, faithful to her trust, appears for its re- 
demption. She approaches, and stands before the 
tomb : she stretches out her sceptre and smites the 
sepulchre ; its moss-grown covering rends asunder ; 
she cries to the silent inhabitants within it ; her en- 
ergizing voice echoes along the cold, damp vaults 
of death, renovating skin and bones, and dust and 
putrefaction. Corruption puts on incorruption, and 
mortal immortality. Her former habitation, thus re- 
fined and sublimated by the resurrection, the exult- 
ing soul re-enters, and thenceforth the measure of 
her joy is full. 

Here thought and language fail me. Inspiration 
itself describes the glories of futurity by declaring 
them indescribable. Eye hath not seen, ear hatli 
not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of 
man to conceive the things which are prepared for 
the people of God. What ideas are these ? How 
must the soul exult at the prospect, and swell with 
the amazing conception ! 

As Christianity exhibits the most enrapturing mo- 
tives to the practice of virtue, so it urges the most 
tremendous considerations to deter from vice. She 
declares, solemnly and irrevocably declares, " That 
the wages of sin are death." And, to enforce her 
declaration, points to the concluding scene of na- 
ture — when, amid a departing heaven and a dis- 
Bolving world, the Son of Man shall descend, with 



THE GOSPEL. 26 

the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, to 
be glorified in his saints and take vengeance on his 
enemies ! 

Such is the gospel : and here I rest my observa- 
tions. At this affecting crisis, my beloved pupils, 
this gospel I deliver you. It is the most invaluable 
gift ; and I solemnly adjure you to preserve it in- 
violate for ever. To whatever part of God's crea- 
tion you may wander, carry this with you. Consult 
it in prosperity ; resort to it in trouble ; shield your- 
selves with it in danger, and rest your fainting head 
on it in death. 

Do this : and, though the world be convulsed 
around you, the elements dissolve, and the heavens 
depart, still your happiness is secure. But should 
you ever, in an hour of rashness, be tempted to cast 
it from you, remember that with it you cast away 
salvation. 'Tis the last hope of sinful, dying man. 
This gone, all is lost! Immortality is lost, and 
lost also is the soul, which might otherwise have in- 
herited and enjoyed it. Under these impressions, 
go forth to the world : and may God go with you. 

Committing you to his care, and with a heart full 
of parental solicitude for your welfare, I bid you an 
affectionate and final farewell. 
P, 



26 TEMPTATIONS OF THE YOUNG. 



ir. 

DELIVERED JULY 30, 1806. 

[Nature of Man threefold : Sensitive, Intellectual, and Moral. 
— Pleasures of Sense : Lawful and Innocent in themselves, 
and Forbidden and Pernicious only when sinfully and ex- 
cessively indulged. — Intellectual Pleasures : their elevated, 
refined, and durable Character. — Man's Moral Nature, and 
the Responsibilities derived from it. — Virtue alone leads to 
Happiness. — The duty of judging charitably of others : of 
avoiding Slander. — Claims of Parents upon their Children.] 

Young gentlemen, most affecting to a parent is 
the moment when his children, commencing masters 
of their fortune, leave their paternal home and enter 
on the world. The disasters which may dissipate 
their property, the temptations which may corrupt 
their virtue, and the maladies which may assail their 
persons, present themselves in clusters to his eye, 
and crowd upon his mind. Were it possible, gladly 
would he accompany, counsel, and direct them on 
their way. But it is not possible. He can, there- 
fore, only vent his full heart in benedictions, and, 
looking up to God, commit the inexperienced adven- 
turers to his cm-e. 

Parting with a class endeared to me by a course 
of the most filial and affectionate conduct, my sit- 
uation and my feelings resemble those of a parent 
parting with his children. 

Dear pupils, thus far your instructors have ac- 
companied and directed you in your studies and 
pursuits. But the time of separation has arrived • 



THREEFOLD NATURE OF MAN. 27 

we have reached the point where our ways divide. 
Before we part, indulge a word of counsel, the last 
to be communicated by him who now addresses 
you. 

The end that each of you has in view is happi- 
ness. To be informed beforehand of the course 
that will conduct to it, must be infinitely important : 
because, should you mistake the means, with how- 
ever much ardour and constancy you may pursue the 
end, your efforts will be vain, and your future expe- 
rience prove but the sad disappointment of your 
present hopes. How, then, may success be ensured ? 
what manner of life will conduct to happiness ] To 
answer this interrogation, the character of man must 
be developed, his constitution analyzed, his capaci- 
ties of enjoyment ascertained, and the correspond- 
encies between those capacities and their resp'^^^r- - 
ive objects unfolded. 

What, then, is man ? Man is a being in whom are 
mysteriously combined a sensitive, an intellectual^ 
and a moral nature : each of which should be kept 
in view in the present inquiry, and the comparative 
claims of each considered in making a decision. 

You have been told by an author, more esteemed 
for the benevolence of his heart than the profound- 
ness of his doctrines, " that human happiness does 
not consist in the pleasures of sense, in whatever 
variety or profusion they may be enjoyed." It is 
true that human happiness does not consist exclu- 
sively or principally in these. The senses, how- 
ever, are a real source of enjoyment ; nor would 
I wish you either to despise or undervalue them. 



28 PLEASURES OF SENSE. 

The God of nature has not thought it derogatory lo 
his wisdom, his goodness, or his sanctity, to bestow 
on you this class of enjoyments ; and surely it can- 
not be derogatory to yours to receive them at his 
hand. 

No inconsiderable part of the happiness allotted 
to man is conveyed through the medium of the 
senses, at least in the present world, and, perhaps, 
in the world to come. For the bodies we inhabit, 
the sleep of death being ended, will be rescued from 
the tomb ; and it is not easy to perceive why they 
should be rescued, if their recovery is to have no in- 
fluence on the pleasures and pains of eternity ; to 
add nothing to the amount of endless misery or im- 
mortal bliss. 

True, they deposite in the grave (I speak of the 
redeemed) all their present grossness, pollution, and 
corruptibility : for they are to be raised from thence 
spiritual bodies. But whether this transformation, 
this refinement, this sublimation, which the renova- 
ted body undergoes, puts an eternal end to its influ- 
ence on the happiness of the exulting soul, which at 
the resurrection enters it, or whether this mysteri- 
ous change do not rather exalt its powers, and ren- 
der them capable of communicating a happiness 
more refined and sublimated, is an article on which, 
though revelation were silent, it should seem that 
reason could scarcely entertain a doubt. 

I know that there are men, and good men too, 
who calumniate, indiscriminately, all the pleasures 
of sense. I say calumnfate, for the language they 
utter is neither the language of reason nor reveia- 



PLEASURES OF SENSE. 29 

tion. The finger of God is too manifest in the 
sensitive part of human nature to admit a doubt 
concerning the innocence of those enjoyments which 
spring from it. Christianity, instead of abjuring, 
approbates the pleasures of sense. She claims 
them as her own, and bids the possessor indulge 
them to the glory of the God who gave them. 
And the author of Christianity, that great exemplar 
of righteousness and model of perfection, came eat- 
ing and drinking. Again and again he graced 
the festive board with his divine presence : he de- 
livered his celestial doctrines amid the circles of so- 
cial friendship, and the first of that splendid series 
of miracles which signalized his life was performed 
at a marriage supper. 

But, though the pleasures of sense constitute a 
part, and an innocent part, it is but a very humble 
part of human felicity. While they are restrained 
within the limits, and conformed in all respects to 
the decorum of gospel morality, they are perfectly 
admissible. But if this decorum be violated, if 
these limits be transgressed, order is subverted, and 
guilt, as well as misery, ensues. 

On this article nature herself coincides with reli- 
gion, and fixes at the same point her sacred and un- 
alterable boundary. She has stamped on the very 
frame of man her veto against excess ; and the ap- 
athy, the languor, the pains and disgusts consequent 
"upon it, are her awful and monitory voice, which 
says distinctly to the devotee of passion, " Rash 
mortal, forbear : thou wast formed for temperance, 
for chastity ; these be the law of thy nature. Hith- 



30 

erto thou mayest come, but no farther ; and here 
must all thy appetites be stayed." 

Attend to the voice of nature : obey her man- 
date. Consider, even in the heat of youthful blood, 
consider thy frame, " how fearfully^ how wonder- 
fully made ;" how delicate its texture, how various, 
how complicated, how frail its organs ; how capable 
of affording thee an exquisite and abiding happiness, 
and, at the same time, how liable, by one rash act of 
intemperate indulgence, to be utterly deranged and 
destroyed for ever. 

And let me forewarn you that the region of in- 
nocent indulgence and guilty pleasure border on 
each other ; a single step only separates them. If 
you do not regulate your pleasures by principles 
fixed and settled ; if you do not keep in your eye 
a boundary that you will never pass ; if you do not 
impose previous restraints, but leave your hearts to 
direct you amid the glee of convivial mirth and the 
blandishments of youthful pleasure, it requires no 
prophetic eye to foresee, that, impelled by the gusts 
of passion, '' conscience will swing from its moor- 
ings," and that your probity, your virtue, your inno 
cence will be irrevocably shipwrecked. 

The intellectual nature of man, — And here the 
design of the Creator is more than intimated. The 
posture of man is erect, and his countenance, irradi- 
ated by an expressive intelligence, is directed to- 
wards the heavens. If he possesses some faculties 
in common with animals, he possesses others dis- 
tinct from theirs : faculties as much superior to those 
of sense, as the stars which decorate the firmament 



man's intellectual nature. 31 

of God are higher and more resplendent than the 
worthless pebble that sparkles amid the dust and 
rubbish on his footstool : faculties which no indul- 
gence surfeits, no exercise impairs, or time destroys : 
often sustaining the infirmities of age ; often beam- 
ing with intellectual radiance through the palsied or- 
gans of a dying body, and sometimes even gilding 
the evening of animal existence with the anticipated 
splendours of immortal life. 

The appetites of the body are soon cloyed, and 
the richest banquets of sense disgust. But the ap- 
petites of the mind, if I may speak so, are never sat- 
isfied. In all the variety, in all the plenitude, in all 
the luxury of mental enjoyment, the most favoured 
individual was never surfeited, or once heard to say, 
*' It is enough." The more of these delicate, these 
pure, these sublime, I had almost said holy pleas- 
ures, an individual enjoys, the more he is capable 
of enjoying, and the more he is solicitous to enjoy. 
It is the intellectual eye that is never satisfied with 
seeing, the intellectual ear that is never satisfied 
with hearing. 

The powers in question are not more superior to 
those of sense than the provision for them is more 
abundant. Beauty, grandeur, novelty — all the fine 
arts — music, painting, sculpture, architecture, garden- 
mg, considered scientifically, are so many sources 
of mental enjoyment. But why do I mention these 
particulars ? All the region of nature — earth with 
its varieties — heaven with its sublimities — the en- 
tire universe, '^ ^^K^ad out before the intellectual 
observer. 



32 MAN'S MORAL NATURE. 

Nor the visible creation alone. To principalitiefi 
and powers ; to thrones, dominions, and all the 
nameless orders which constitute the interminable 
line of heavenly excellence, man is introduced : or- 
ders for ever advancing in wisdom, and brightening 
in the splendours of intellectual glory, at the head 
of which appears the Eternal Being, who alone 
changes not, because infinite perfection cannot 
change. The pleasure which springs from the 
knowledge and contemplation of these objects, 
this universe of good, is so ineffable, so transcend- 
ent, that the wretch who does not prefer it to the 
mere indulgence of sense, though free of other 
crimes, evinces a depravity which merits eternal 
reprobation. 

His moral nature, — Man was made to be reli- 
gious, to acknowledge and reverence God, and to 
be conformed in his moral conduct to the law of 
God. You have only to consult your hearts to be 
convinced of this. The proof is there inscribed in 
characters which are indelible. 

When even the child looks abroad into the works 
of the Creator, he naturally refers the objects which 
surround him to an adequate first'cause, and asks, 
'^ Where is God their maker." If sudden danger 
threatens him, his eye is directed to the heavens for 
relief. If unexpected happiness overtakes him, his 
heart breaks forth in grateful acknowledgments to 
an unseen benefactor. Even the untutored savage* 
surveys the wilderness of nature — the extended 
earth, the distant heavens- — with religious awe, and 
pays to their creator an instinctive homage* 



SKEPTICISM. 33 

Devotion is a law of human nature ; and you 
can with no more consistency deny its existence, 
than you can deny the existence of the laws by 
which heaven and earth are governed. You may 
as well deny that there is a principle in your bodies 
that binds them to the earth, as that there is a 
principle in your souls which elevates them to the 
heavens. 

Nor is the reality of the moral sense more ques- 
tionable. Self-complacency springs from the per- 
formance of duty ; shame and regret from the com- 
mission of sin. Skepticism may endeavour to per- 
suade you to the contrary, but it never can. It has 
indeed weakened the faith and clouded the hopes of 
thousands, but it never gave a single individual a 
settled, firm, and abiding belief that there is no God, 
no futurity, or that man is not accountable. There 
have been serious and awful moments in the lives 
of the boldest champions of infidelity when they 
have discovered symptoms of dereliction : moments 
when the struggles of nature could not be repressed, 
and when the voice of nature has been heard to 
break forth. The punishment of Cain, given up to 
the tortures of a guilty mind, was greater than he 
could bear ; and the spectre of John the Baptist 
haunted the bedchamber of Herod long after the 
tomb had become to that martyr a bed of repose. 
Who was it, think you, that anticipated the prophet 
in interpreting the handwriting of Belshazzar, and 
emote the sacrilegious wretch with trembling 1 Why 
did Galerius relent on his death-bed? And what 
made Caligula afraid when it thundered '? It was 



34 CONSCIENCE. 

conscience : who, startled by clanger from her slum- 
bers, shook her terrific sceptre, and uttered her mon- 
itory voice. 

Nor is it material to inquire why man is thus 
formed. It is a fact that he is so formed ; nor is it 
possible for him to be happy in a course of conduct 
which does violence to his nature. From the pen 
alties of the mind you can no more escape than 
from the appetites of the body. You may avoid the 
malediction of an earthly tribunal. You may avoids 
says the irreligionist, the malediction of God : but 
yourselves — the retribution of justice within youi 
own bosoms — how is this to be avoided? Con- 
science, like that Divinity of which it is a symbol, 
with respect to you, is omnipresent. Though you 
ascend to heaven — though you make your bed in 
hell — though you take the wings of the morning, 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, this 
avenger of sin will accompany you : watching with 
an eye from which no darkness can conceal, and 
chastising with a thong that no fortitude can endure. 
The spirit of man ivill sustain his infirmity, but a 
wounded spirit ivho can bear ? 

Such briefly is man ; in providing for whose hap- 
piness his entire constitution must be consulted, 
each distinct capacity of enjoyment, must be furnish- 
ed with appropriate objects, and a due proportion 
between them all must be preserved. 

Be this your care. Despise not corporal pleas- 
ures, neither exalt them too highly. Hold them 
subordinate to intellectual enjoyments, and these 
subordinate to moral Your intellectual and moral 



VIRTUE A^fD HAPPINESS. 35 

nature is what allies you to angels and assimilates 
you to God. Age will presently rob you of all the 
delights of sense ; but of intellectual and moral 
delights neither age nor death can rob you. To 
the votary of science and religion, the last cup of 
heavenly consolation is not poured out till his eye 
is closing on the world, and his flesh descending 
into the grave in hope. 

A life of virtue and happiness, then, exactly co- 
incide. To practise the one is to secure the other. 
The God of virtue formed every faculty of pleasure, 
and has made them all subservient to duty. There 
are those, I am sensible, who represent religion 
shrouded in gloom and covered with scowls ; but 
the attitude, the drapery, the features are unlike the 
divine original, and betray the pencil of an enemy. 
There never was, nor ever will be, one source of 
happiness which religion does not authorize. 

Some, indeed, speak of all the pleasures of sense 
as pleasures of sin. But such language is at oncel 
an outrage to common sense and an indignity to 
God. Sin never gave the faculties of sense, and \ 
let not sin claim the bliss that springs from them. \ 
There is not a being in the universe that owes to"^ 
sin a single enjoyment. The immortal God is the ^ 
author of them all. He made you what you are ; 
and if, in the abuse of the faculties he has bestowed, 
a sincrle delight remain, it is owing to his clemency. 

Which of the faculties is it, I would ask, that sin 
improves ? Is it the eye ? Is it the ear 1 Is it 
the palate ? Does sin add any new faculties ? No ; 
she only palsies the energies, perverts the use, and 



36 VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS. 

poisons the pleasures of those which before existed : 
these are her baneful and damning work — under 
whose influence, delights, once desired, disgust the 
thoughts and pall upon the senses. My God ! if 
/ you are beguiled by an idea of the pleasures of sin, 
I look once upon the emaciated body, the pallid coun- 
tenance, the bloated features, and the mutilated face 
\ of the loathsome and worn-out sensualist ! Look 
again ! And can you believe the place of his resort 
is the habitation of pleasures ? No : 'tis the temple 
of pollution, of disease, of death ; there sm, aceur- 
] sed sorceress, mingles her cup and infuses her poi- 
/ son. Mark the place, avoid it, turn from it, and 
^^ flee away. 

After this, will you believe that virtue is your en- 
emy? that religion requires sacrifices? If sa, in 
the name of God, what are they ? I know of none, 
unless of disease, of pain, of infamy. 

True, you may not riot at the banquets of Bac- 
chus ; but you may participate in temperance at the 
table of convivial mirth, and, exhilarated, rise from 
thence to give God thanks. You may not steal at 
midnight to the infamous pleasures of the brothel ; 
but you may cherish at your homes the refined, the 
, hallowed pleasures of connubial friendship. You 
L^ may not, indeed, so much as lay your head upon 
the lap of Delilah ; but you may live joyfully with 
the wife whom you love all the days of your pil- 
grimage, for it is the portion which God gives you 
under the sun. 

As we have said, a I'/e of virtue and a life of hap- 
piness coincide ; and .le who seeks the latter in op- 



CONDUCT TO OPPONENTS. 37 

position to the former, counteracts the laws of na- 
ture ; contradicts the experience of ages ; and, to 
succeed, must transcend not himself only, but his 
Maker also, and become more potent than omnip- 
otence himself. The body can subsist in health , 
without aliment as easily as the soul without virtue : 
nor is poison more fatal to the one than the venom ' 
of sin to the other. This is a matter of experience, 
of fact ; and whoever asserts to the contrary, belies 
his heart, and contradicts the testimony of a world. 

I have detained you so long on the means of hap« 
piness, that time would fail me were I to enter in 
detail on the conduct of life. The great principles 
of morality and piety are involved in the argument we 
have been pursuing. An incidental thought or two, 
suggested by the times in which we live, is all that 
will be attempted. 

Permit me, then, particularly to enjoin you to con^ 
duct honourably and charitably towards those who 
are opposed to you in their opinions. Diversity of 
sentiment is inevitable in a state of things like the 
present. The dispensation of time is an obscure 
dispensation, and, till the light of eternity shall break 
upon the mind, it is not to be expected that erring 
mortals will see eye to eye. While groping in this 
world, and following the guidance of that erring rea- 
son which is scarcely sufficient to direct us through 
it, it must be folly to suppose ourselves always in 
the right, and more than folly to reprobate tliose 
whom we consider in the wrong. 

Society, on which you are about to enter, is aU 
ready divided into various sects in religion, and agi- 



38 FORMATION OF JUDGMENT. 

tated by contending parties in politics. Between 
these hold the balance with an equal hand, and let 
merit, and not prejudice or interest, turn the beam. 

To judge correctly, you must take a comprehen- 
sive view of the whole field of controversy ; and, 
having honestly formed your judgment, give full 
credit to the merit of those who differ from you, 
and be sparing of the censure which you conceive 
to be their due. 

Beivare of judging bodies of men in the gross, 
as though each individual ivere chargeable ivith the 
vices of the whole. There is no body of men among 
whom you may not find something to admire and 
much to blame. Be careful to separate, therefore, 
the gold from the dross, and to distinguish the pre- 
cious from the vile. 

If there can be anything that can disgrace civil- 
ized society, it is a spirit of indiscriminate and wan- 
ton slander ; a spirit, the vilest with which any na- 
tion can be cursed. And yet this spirit exists. It 
exists among us. It pervades the whole extent of 
a country once proudly pre-eminent for every social 
virtue. It insinuates itself into the cottage of the 
peasant ; it enters, I had almost said resides, in the 
mansion of the great. It is cherished by every 
party ; it moves in every circle. It hovers round 
the sacred altar of mercy ; it approaches the awful 
seat of justice. In one word, it surrounds us on 
every side, and on every side it breathes forth its 
pestilential vapour, blasting talents and virtue, and 
reducing, like the grave, whose pestiferous influence 



PRACTICAL DUTY. 39 

It imitates,*the great, and the good, and the ignoble, 
and the vile, to the same humiliating level. 

Permit me to indulge the hope, young gentlemen, 
that you will never enHst under the banner of this 
foe to human happiness, nor prostitute your talents, 
or even lend your names, to this work of intellectual 
massacre. 

Having taken so much pains and expended so 
much treasure in preparing for future usefulness, 
will you consent to become mere scavengers in so- 
ciety, and spend your lives in collecting and retailing 
filth 1 Remember that the course of the eagle is 
directed towards the heavens, and that it is the ser- 
pent that winds along the fens, creeps upon his belly, 
and licks the dust. 

Whatever party you may join, or in whatever ri- 
valships you may engage, let your warfare be that 
of honourable policy, and not the smutty contest 
which succeeds by blackening private character. 
Convinced of the sacredness of reputation, never 
permit yourselves to sport with the virtues, or even 
lightly attack the vices of men in power. If they 
pass a certain boundary, indeed sufferance would be 
pusillanimity, and silence treason. But the public 
good, and not private interest or private resentment, 
must fix that boundary. 

There is a homage due to the sanctity of office, 
whoever fills it : an homage which every man owes, 
and which every good man will feel himself bound 
to pay, after the sublime example of him who, 
though a Jew and residing at Jerusalem, rendered 
honour and paid tribute to Csesar at Rome, 



€|9 DUTY TO PARENTS. 

I cannot sum up all that I would wish to say to 
you on practical duty better than by placing the en- 
tire character of Jesus Christ before you as a per- 
fect model, in the imitation of which will alike con- 
sist your happiness and glory. On every important 
question, ask what would have been his opinion, 
what his conduct ; and let the answer regulate your 
own. 

Methinks your parents, some of whom I see in 
this assembly, add their sanction to the counsel I 
am now delivering. Parents whom I cannot but 
commend particularly to your ingenuousness, and 
from their kindness and solicitude derive an argu- 
ment to enforce all that I have said. You will never 
know, till the bitterness of filial ingratitude shall 
teach you, the extent of the duty that you owe them, 
On you their affections have been placed : on you 
their treasures expended. With what tenderness 
they ministered to your wants in helpless infancy ; 
with what patience they bore with your indiscretions 
in wayward childhood ; and with what solicitude 
they watched your steps in erring youth. No care 
has been too severe ; no self-denials too painful ; no 
sacrifices too great, which would contribute to your 
felicity. To your welfare the meridian of life has 
been constantly devoted, and even its cheerless 
evening is rendered supportable by the prospect of 
leaving you the heirs of their fame and of their for- 
tiinp. For all this affection and kindness, the only 
reward they expect, the only requital they ask, is, 
that, when you enter on the world, you will act wor- 
thy of yourselves, and not dishonour them. 



FILIAL PIETY. 41 

And shall this requital be denied them? Will 
you, by your follies, disturb even the tranquillity of 
age ; rob declining life of its few remaining pleas- 
ures, and, snatching away from the palsied hand of 
your aged parents the last cup of earthly consola- 
tion, bring their gray hairs with anticipated sorrow 
to the grave ] 

It was a noble spectacle^ amid the flames that 
were consuming Troy, and while the multitude vvere 
intent only on rescuing their paltry treasures, to see 
the dutiful iEneas bearing on his shoulders the ven- 
erable Anchises, his aged father, to a place of safety. 
But ah ! how rare such examples of filial piety ! 
My God ! the blood freezes in the veins at the 
thought of the ingratitude of children. Spirits of 
my sainted parents, could I recall the hours when 
it was in my power to honour you, how different 
should be my conduct ! Ah ! were not the dead 
unmindful of the reverence the Uving pay them, I 
would disturb the silence of your tombs with nightly 
orisons, and bedew the urn which contains your 
ashes with perpetual tears ! 

It is within your power to prevent the bitterness 
of such regrets. But I must arrest the current of 
my feehngs. Your future usefulness, your eternal 
salvation, constitute a motive so vast, so solemn, 
that, were I to yield to its overwhelming influence, I 
should protract the hour of separation, and fill up 
with counsel and admonition the declining day. 

I shall address you no more. I shall meet with 
you no more, till, having passed the solemnities of 
death, I meet you in eternity. So spend the inter- 
D 



42 FAREWELL. 

veiling period, I adjure you, that that meeting may 
be joyous ; and the immortality which shall follow 
it splendid as the grace of that God is free, to 
whom, surrendering my charge, I now commit you 
Leavmg with you this counsel, I bid you an aJQTec 
tionate and final farewell. 



ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG. 43 

III. 

DELIVERED JULY 29, 1807. 

[The young require to be specially cautioned against the pre- 
dominant Vices of the Day — Spirit of nnutual Injury, Recrim- 
ination, and Revenge characteristic of the Times —Definition 
of Revenge, and its wicked and odious Character described. — 
Private Revenge forbidden by the Divine Law, and Ven 
geance declared to belong to God alone.— Under what cir- 
cumstances, and how far we may resist Personal injuries.-- 
False and True Honour. — The practice of Duelling : its Sin 
fulness and awful Consequences.— Christian Treatment of 
Enemies — An arrogant, ambitious, and revengeful Disposition 
in the last degree hateful in a Christian minister. — The Char- 
acter of the Saviour, his Precepts and perfect Exam.ple teach 
us how we should at ail times act under Injuries.] 

Young gentlemen, a seminary is a world in min- 
iature. The resemblances are strong and numer- 
ous : none of which, however, strike the mind more 
forcibly than that succession of actors, who, trip- 
ping over the stage, sustain the parts of the passing 
drama. As generation follows generation, so class 
follows class ; and the gladsome smile of social in- 
tercourse soon gives place to the solemn gloom of 
final separation. On these occasions, custom author- 
izes an address to the young adventurers, and nature 
sanctions what custom authorizes. Anxious for 
your future welfare, your instructers, who have hith- 
erto guarded your virtue and watched for your hap- 
piness, seize on the parting interview, and, by the 
solemn circumstances which crowd upon the mind, 
urge their last counsel. 



44 SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. 

It is not possible, in the few moments allotted to 
this address, to develop, or even hint at all those 
doctrines of faith which demand your attention ; nor 
should I feel as if I had discharged the sacred duty 
which I owed you, had I left these to a hasty dis- 
cussion in this place and on this occasion. To 
furnish you with a complete summary of practical 
duty is also impossible. A glance only at a topic 
or two is all that will be attempted. The real friend 
adapts his admonitions to the dangers which threaten, 
and shapes his cautions to the spirit of the times : 
the spirit of the times is a spirit of mutual injury, 
recrimination, and revenge. In such an age, to hope 
to pass through life unassailed is vain. The only 
question is, therefore, how are you to sustain the as- 
sault; how treat the assailant? 

Were the world to utter its voice in this place, it 
would tell you to be ever vigilant to discover causes 
of offence ; quick in repelling, and inexorable in re- 
venging to the uttermost the slightest attack upon 
your person or your honour. The gospel, how- 
ever, adopts a different counsel, and, in the bland 
accents of its Author, inculcates forbearance and 
forgiveness. 

The crimes and miseries resulting from revenge 
have been witnessed in every country and regretted 
in every age. Philosophy, in attempting to regulate, 
hath increased the evil. Christianity alone directs, 
her weapons at its root, and aims at preventing the 
effects by exterminating the principle. 

Revenge has been defined, the Inflicting of pain 
upon the person who has injured or offended us^faV" 



CHARACTER OF REVENGE. 45 

ther than the just ends of punishment or reparation 
require, "There can be no difficulty in knowing 
when we occasion pain to another, nor much in 
distinguishing whether we do so with a view only to 
the ends of punishment or from revenge ; for in 
the one case we proceed with reluctance, in the oth- 
er with pleasure." 

Most, if not all the human passions, have their 
use in the economy of life ; and, when sanctified 
by grace, conduce no less to virtue than to happi- 
ness. But how can a passion which has misery as 
its object be useful — how agreeable to the Deity? 
Where could have been its sphere of action in the 
primeval state — or towards whom could it have been 
directed, while mutual love predominated in the 
breast of man? To these interrogations it is not 
easy to give a satisfactory answer. Is revenge, 
then, a new principle resulting from the apostacy ? 
I know that the apostacy touched the vital principle 
of man with death ; that it corrupted and perverted 
those faculties and powers which before existed ; but 
I do not know that it created new ones. And when 
man shall be restored to that perfection from which 
he hath fallen, the restoration will consist, not in the 
annihilation of any of his faculties, but in the recov- 
ery of his entire nature from sin to holiness ; so 
that he who before hated will now love his Maker 
with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength^ and his 
neighbour as himself. 

May it, then, not be supposed, that the principle 
in question is not a new one; but the ruins of a 
once holy principle implanted in the breasts of moral 



46 DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. 

agents, predisposing them to acquiesce in distributive 
justice, and to say, in view of the executed penal- 
ties of the fearful law of God, true and righteous 
are thy judgments ? and which principle, now per- 
verted and depraved, prompts the proud possessor 
not to acquiesce in, but to seize on the administra- 
tion of Jehovah : to utter his maledictions, and hurl 
his thunders on every being who has done, or is 
supposed to have done him an injury. 

Though there cannot be an intentional injury 
without sin, and though pain is, and for ever will be, 
the just desert of the sinner, it is not the province 
of any created being to ascertain the degree of pain 
due for any offence, or to inflict the same when as- 
certained. This is an act of distributive penal jus- 
tice, which belongs to God, and to him exclusively. 
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. 

So minute are the causes which operate on hu- 
man minds, so imperceptible are the shades of moral 
turpitude, that the Omniscient Being alone is com- 
petent to distributive justice. In civil governments, 
even penal codes are not founded on distributive, 
but general justice ; nor do these aim at the appor- 
tionment of penalties to personal demerit, but at 
the prevention of crimes or the reformation of offend- 
ers — a thing totally different in its nature from the 
assignment of a certain degree of suffering to a 
certain degree of criminality. Hence the difficulty 
of detecting, and the necessity of preventing certain 
offences, and not the malignity of each particular 
case, determine human legislators in the severity of 
their penalties. 



INFLICTION OP PUNISHMENT. 47 

But, if civil governments, authorized by Divine 
appointment, are not to execute vengeance on offend- 
ers, much less are individuals to do this. It is, 
therefore, no apology for, or, rather, justification of, 
an act of vengeance, that the person who is the ob- 
ject of it is guilty : nor does it alter the case that 
that guilt has been incurred by an injury done to 
you. He may deserve to be chastised for his te- 
merity, but you are not constituted either the judge 
or the executor of that chastisement. 

Not that I would inculcate that pain may never 
be inflicted on the individual who has done you 
wrong. It sometimes may and ought to be inflict- 
ed. But the motive to this infliction of pain, and 
the measure of pain to be inflicted, are to be look- 
ed for in the good it will produce, and not in the 
misery due to the offender. There are cases of 
personal injury where the will of the great Law- 
giver is expressed. In every other instance your 
own good, the good of the offender, or the public 
good, can alone constitute a justifiable motive for 
punishing, or fix the measure of the punishment. 
And where neither of these ends can be answered, 
no matter of what crime an individual may have 
been guilty — no matter what punishment he deserves 
from God, his Maker and his Master, he deserves 
none from you. Avenge not yourselves, but rather 
give place unto wrath. These are the words of an 
apostle. But I say unto you that you resist not 
evil : but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 
cheeky turn to him the other also. And whosoever 
will take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak abo* 



48 RIGHT OF SELF-PRESERVATION. 

These are the words of Christ. They are, how- 
ever, not to be interpreted literally, but proverbially : 
inculcating habitual forbearance, and the overcoming 
of evil with good. 

Express declarations of Scripture give you a 
right, in extreme cases, to defend yourselves, even 
at the expense of the life of the assailant. Here 
the motive is self-defence, and the force made use 
of ought to be proportioned to the danger, and not 
to exceed it. In such cases, where human laws 
cannot operate for your protection, or repair the evil 
to which forbearance might subject you, the Divine 
law interposes, and constitutes you the executor of 
its justice ; and where the alarm does not produce 
a state of mind incompatible with moral agency, 
your act on the invader of your rights may be con- 
sidered as an official one. But these acts are es- 
sentially different from those revenges which are 
every day taking place, where the injury done to the 
aggressor neither prevents nor repairs the injury 
done hy him. Besides, those acts are in direct vio- 
lation of civil government, which make the laws 
umpire in cases of controversy, and leaves not the 
injured individual to be judge in his own cause. 

Far be it from me to wish to extinguish in your 
bosoms the genuine principles of honour. These 
spring up from the very seat of virtue ; and where 
these are not, greatness disappears — probity, integ* 
rity, and valour are no more. Rather let me incul- 
cate high notions of personal character ; let me fos- 
ter a lofty sense of individual dignity, and adjure 
you scrupulously to avoid whatever would tend to 



DUELLING. 49 

Btain the one or degrade the other ; but let me tell 
you that is but a sorry honour which requires to be 
estabhshed by a challenge or vindicated by a shot. 

Personal bravery is commendable. You live not 
for yourselves, but for your friends, your country, 
your God. In a good cause you ought not to re- 
gard even life itself On great occasions, and when 
the voice of public justice calls you, face danger, 
tread with undaunted step the field of death, and 
covet the place of desolation. But in your own in- 
dividual cause ; in the little pitiful neglects and in- 
sults which may be offered you, be too great to feel 
them, too magnanimous to resent them. 

Shall you, then, desert your honour ? No : de- 
fend it — scrupulously defend it. How 1 "By a good 
life ; by a uniform course of probity, integrity, and 
valour. Whenever you are accused, you will either 
be guilty or not. If guilty, an exchange of shots 
cannot expiate that guilt : if you are not guilty, the 
liar's tongue cannot make you so. 

What a humiliating spectacle do those appellants, 
in cases of personal controversy, to the chancery of 
firearms, furnish to the world ! 

But to this degrading farce there is appended a 
solemn after scene, which stifles irony, and from 
which appalled humanity turns away with horror. 
Suddenly the scene changes into the tragic pomp of 
death. The mania of passion subsides. The eti- 
quette of honour is laid aside ; the stream of life» 
flowing out from the wounded heart, quenches the 
fire of vengeance, and swallows up the injuries 
which produced a catastrophe so awful. Conscience 
E 



60 DUELLING. 

awakes ; the fictitious drapery which custom had 
flung around the rash adventurer falls off; the fell 
assassin stands, naked and aghast, over the expiring 
victim of his anger ; a witness of that blood, which, 
issuing forth, attaches to his person the stain of 
murder, and lifts from the steeped earth its accusing 
voice to the God of life. With the emotions of 
Cain imbrued in his brother's blood, he goes back 
into the world from the field of death. There his 
eye meets the frantic stare of the wife whom his 
wrath hath made a widow. The plaints of her hap- 
less children, whom he has doomed to perpetual or- 
phanage, sigh upon the breeze and linger on his 
ear : while a distracted father shakes his gray locks, 
and utters from his quivering lips his deep-toned 
execration on the wretch who has felled at a blow his 
hopes, and consigned to the grave his son ! 

From these sad objects he tears himself; but, as 
if the tomb refused to repose the dust consigned to 
it by violence, the form of his fallen adversary pur- 
sues him. He hears, amid the silence of the mid- 
night hour, a groan — and sees blood still issuing from 
the wound which in his wrath he opened. 

And for what is this rash act indulged, which 
drags in its train such accumulated horrors 1 For 
an unguarded word — a turn of wit — the omission of 
a nod — or, perhaps, the fighting of a spaniel. Great 
God ! and is this the boasted magnanimity of duel- 
lists 1 Sooner may my joints indurate in their sock- 
ets, or mine arm fall severed from my shoulder- 
blade, than be raised in such an action. 

But, aside frpm powder and bullets, £^nd all that 



RETALIATION. 61 

!^ameless machinery of justice which constitutes the 
tribunal of honour (a tribunal before which, I pray 
God, you may never disgrace yourselves by appear- 
ing), it remains a question how you are to meet 
those disingenuous attacks to which you will inev- 
itably be exposed ? 

The law of retaliation is an eye for an eye^ and 
a tooth for a tooth. Sheltering themselves under 
the rigour of this law, men of implacable temper 
indulge resentment ; and when a malicious slander- 
er spits forth the venom of his heart, they spit forth 
the venom of theirs in return. But I say unto you, 
resist not evil, but overcome evil with good. Must 
you, then, always restrain your pen, and, passive to 
injury, seal your lips in silence ? No : there may 
be cases in which the cause of truth requires not 
only the avowal of your sentiments, but also a firm 
and manly vindication of them. When this is the 
fact, to shrink from the ordeal of scrutiny were pu- 
sillanimity — were treason. When this is the fact, 
be regardless of personal consequences, encounter 
reproach, and become a voluntary martyr to right- 
eousness. But, even in the act of martyrdom, 
watch your deceitful hearts, that righteousness, not 
self be your motive. 

There may, too, be cases in which a reply to dis- 
ingenuous insinuations or open slanders may be re- 
quisite as a vindication of yourselves. These cases, 
however, are fewer, much fewer than you imagine i 
and prudence, not passion, will point them out. You 
may never reply for the sake of goading your ad- 
versary, however much you may have him in your 



52 SCANDAL. SUSPICION. 

power; and seldom, very seldom, will it be wise to 
reply as a personal defence. 

Scandal, left to itself, usually loses its power to 
injure. Suspicion will not easily attach to the char- 
acter of a good man while he acts consistently, and 
remains in the dignified posture of self-approving 
silence. He who pursues the path of duty, nor 
swerves from his purpose, however attacked, carries 
his vindication with him ; and usually proceeds more 
successfully, and always more nobly, than he who, 
halting, stomps to indulge the littleness of anger, 
and either growls at the tiger, or barks back at the 
whelps and *' whiffets" that follow, and yell and 
yelp along his path. 

Where the public have no interest in being de- 
ceived — where their passions and prejudices are not 
embarked, slander seldom needs any other refuta- 
tion than that furnished in the spirit of its author. 
But will the public always be impartial ? Can their 
candour always be relied on ? No : party-spirit, po- 
litical prejudice, " sectarian zeal," and self-righteous 
bigotry, often blind the eyes of men to justice, and 
stop their ears to truth. But when this is the case — 
when prejudice, and bigotry, and passion are called 
into action, a wise man will hardly expect, by apology, 
by argument, by explanation, to stop their progresj. 
Expect to stop their progress by apology, by argu- 
ment, by explanation ! You might as well expect 
to tame the lightnings ; to confine the tempest, or 
lash the maddened ocean to submission^ No : 
rather stand in silent confidence ; let the storm 
by^ and wait the returning calm of reason. 



REVENGE* 53 

Moreover, our enemies, uncandid as they may 
be, often declare the truth of us— -and truth which 
our friends would be likely to conceal. Their state- 
ments, however disingenuous, may therefore be im- 
proved to our advantage if we have magnanimity 
to examine them impartially, and humility to correct 
the errors which occasioned, or, at least, counte- 
nanced what we may deem invective. But the mo- 
ment we put ourselves on the defensive — the mo- 
ment we become apologists for our faults — that mo- 
ment we become blinded and wedded to them. 

Nor is this all. We cannot enter the lists of in- 
vidious controversy without placing our peace of 
mind in jeopardy. Revenge, even in a war of 
words, cannot be indulged with impunity. A spark 
of It is never smitten from the flinty heart without 
kindling the fire of hell, which it is in vain to hope 
will remain unextinguished in the bosom without 
consuming it. The boiling fury of resentment 
scalds the heart from which it is poured out. When 
an enemy imparts to you his gall, when he provokes 
you to recriminate, then it is that he may claim vic- 
tory ; for he has torn away your shield, and your 
happiness lies naked to his scorpion sting. What, 
then, shall you do ? Retire into the sanctuary of 
your own integrity ; and while the enemy of your 
peace struts, and roars, and swells, and foams around 
you, remote in your feeUngs from the tumult he oc- 
casions, enjoy the holy calm of forgiving mercy : 
recollecting that he who is slow to anger is better 
than the mighty ; and he that inxleth his spirit than 
he that taketh a city 



64 CONDUCT TO ENEMIES. 

You will not construe this advice into an encour- 
agement to that haughty, self-confident demeanour, 
which indicates insensibility to praise, and contempt 
for the opinions and censures of the world. It is 
in virtue's self, and not the affectation of virtue, 
that true greatness lies. I never see a man tran- 
quil under injuries, and candid and ingenuous to- 
wards enemies, but his character rises in my estima- 
tion, and I pay to him a voluntary homage. Nor do 
I ever see one vindictive, railing at his enemies, cry- 
ing down their talents, affecting to despise their 
opinions, and to regard their censures only as the 
idle wind, but, in the act of doing this, his character 
suffers degradation. This is the language of wound- 
ed pride, intended, indeed, to conceal, but which, in 
fact, discovers most effectually the chngrin which is 
felt and the vexation which is suffered. In ques- 
tions that affect yourselves or that affect your en- 
emies, as on every other occasion, be candid. 

If you have taken a wrong position, abandon it : 
if you have committed an error, correct it ; but if 
your conscience is satisfied with the part you have 
acted or the duty you have performed, tranquil and 
self-possessed, abide the issue. If an enemy revile 
you, revile not in return : if that enemy have talents, 
honour them ; and if he merits respect, render it 
unto him. Favour his interests, deal gently with 
his failings, shield his fame. Do even more than 
this. If he be in affliction, sympathize with him ; 
if he be poor, feed him ; if naked, clothe him, and 
let his loins be uxirmed with the fleeces of your flock; 
and as for the injury you may have suflTered, nobly 



UNBECOMING CONDUCT IN MINISTERS. 55 

forgive it, and pray God that it may be forgiven. 
By so doing you will heap coals of fire upon his 
head : coals not to consume, but to melt him into 
righteousness. This, this, if I may speak so, is the 
most effectual and the only laudable revenge. 

Particularly, should any of you enter the sacred 
ministry, let me enjoin on you this conduct. 

Never do haughty egotism, captious animadver- 
sion, and acrimonious rebuke appear so unsightly 
as in the minister charged from the meek and lowly 
Jesus with an embassy of peace. And yet, alas I 
unsightly as these appear, we are sometimes com- 
pelled, with regret and sorrow, to behold them. 

A particular profession or pursuit does not alter 
the nature of the human passions, but only gives to 
them a different direction. The wrath of Paul was 
as deadly as that of Herod. The one assassinated 
out of complaisance to a giddy girl, the other per- 
secuted for conscience' sake. This circumstance, 
however, made no difference to the wretched victims 
whom his malignant zeal pursued to death. 

Under the cover of religion, men perhaps more 
frequently indulge the bitterness of passion without 
compunction than in any other situation. The 
wretch who wantonly, and without some ^ salvo to 
his conscience," attacks private character, feels self- 
condemned. But the sour, sanctimonious, grace- 
hardened bigot embarks all his pride, gratifies all his 
revenge, and empties his corroded bosom of its gall, 
and, having done so, smooths over ihe distorted 
features of a countenance on which sits the smile 
of Judas, and says, and half believes, that he has 
done God service. 



56 UNBECOMING CONDUCT IN MINISTERS. 

The proud, ambitious, arrogant clergyman takes 
his stand in the church with the same views that the 
proud, arrogant, and ambitious statesman takes his 
in the world. 

Is self-aggrandizement the motive of the latter? 
so it is of the former. And this is to be sought in 
pursuits and studies which ought, above all others, 
to sweeten the temper and humble the pride of man. 
But these studies and pursuits, where grace is not 
interposed, do not alter human nature. The arch 
casuist soon, indeed, acquires a zeal for religion, but 
it is cruel : he learns to contend for the faith, but 
he contends v^ith acrimony ; and even the cross, the 
sacred symbol of his Saviour's sufferings, is borne 
about with him as an ostentatious emblem of his 
own humility. His own creed is the standard of 
doctrine, his own church is the exclusive asylum of 
faith. He fancies that he possesses, solus in solo^ 
all the orthodoxy, all the erudition, all the taste of 
the kingdom ; and swaggering, like Jupiter on the 
top of Olympus, he seats himself as sole umpire in 
all matters of faith, of fact, of science. If any one 
dares to pass the boundary he has fixed, or to adopt 
a mode of expression he has not authorized, he 
brands him with the appellation of heretic, and in- 
stantly hurls at his devoted head a thunderbolt. 

If an individual stands in his way, and particular- 
ly if that individual possesses an influence which 
he envies, or fills a place which he covets, he marks 
him as his victim. The sacrifice, however, must 
be orthodoxly performed, and attended with all the 
external forms of sanctity. To prepare the way for 



UNBECOMING CONBtTCT IN MINISTERS. 57 

this, disingenuous insinuations are thrown out against 
the hated object ; his sentiments are nnisstated, his 
Janguage is perverted, and his performances are dis- 
sected and combined anew, and held up in opposi- 
tion to sound doctrine, in order to awaken jealousies, 
to weaken the confidence, and steal away the affec- 
tion of his Christian friends. 

In the mean time, and the more effectually to 
conceal the ultimate design, the sacred names of 
friendship, of sincerity, of candour, are flung around 
the devoted individual, like the garlands with which 
the pagans covered the victim they had selected for 
the altar. Profession swells on profession : a sense 
of duty, a love of truth, and even thy glory, God 
of mercy, is declared by the insatiate executioner to 
govern him, while he feels at the moment the malice 
of heU rankling in his bosom, and dips his pen in 
the venom of the damned. The assault, indeed, is 
conducted under the banner of Jesus Christ. But 
it is immaterial whether it be the banner of Jesus or 
Mohammed. A proud, haughty, persecuting spirit, 
wherever and in whomsoever found, would transform 
the mild accents of heavenly grace to execrations, 
and steep as soon the Evangelists as the Alcoran 
in blood. To the victim who is sacrificed to pride 
or arrogance, it matters not whether the ceremony 
be performed on the scaffold or at the altar. 

You may imagine that there is no occasion for 
cautioning those entering the sacred ministry against 
such a temper in themselves, or to instruct them 
how to meet it in others. But if you so imagine, 
it ia because you know little of yourselves or of 



58 UNBECOMING CONDUCT IN MINISTERS. 

others. There is among Christians, and even among 
Christian ministers (alas ! that it should be so), a 
rebuke that blasts and a zeal that consumes. Do 
you not remember who they were that preferred the 
sanguinary request even to Jesus Christ in person, 
whether they should not command fire to come 
down from heaven, and consume a whole village of 
Samaritans, because they had treated them less ur- 
banely than they expected ? And do you not also 
remember the mild, the heavenly, the endearing, and 
yet pointed rebuke he gave them — rejecting their pro- 
posal, and disclaiming the spirit which produced it ? 
Do you not remember the anathemas which have 
been uttered, and the gibbets which have been erect- 
ed, by ecclesiastical authority ? Ah ! had the spirit 
of the world never pervaded the sacerdotal order, 
the saints would not so often have been compelled 
to famish in dungeons or wander in exile. 

Human nature is the same now as formerly ; and 
happy will you be should you never, even within the 
pale of the Christian church, experience the bitter- 
ness of the wrath of man. Happy will you be 
should you receive no wound in the house of your 
own and your Saviour's friends — should you always 
find in them the same meek, humble, unassuming 
goodness — the same sincerity of friendship, the 
same celestial charity and gentleness of rebuke 
which appeared in him. But should it be other- 
wise ; should you, where you least expect it, meet 
with envy, with treachery, with invective, be neither 
surprised nor disturbed at it. 

In the church as in the world, you will form your 



UNBECOM ING CONDUCT IN MINISTERS. 59 

own character ; nor can your enemies prevent it. 
Their calumny vvili injure you less than you imagine. 
The theological calumniator, however muffled up in 
the habiliments of pieiy, and notwithstanding all the 
parade he may make vf candour, impartiality, and a 
sense of duty, will be much more successful in de- 
ceivinop himself than in deceiving the world. No 
matter how loudly he vociferates the glory of God, 
while his movements evince that he is seeking ex- 
clusively his own glory. However disguised, the 
real temper of his heart will discover itself; his in- 
sidious calumny will be referred to the proper mo- 
tive, and his wounded pride will be seen scowling 
vengeance from behind the tattered mantle of hy- 
pocrisy which is interposed to cover it. Community 
will not be brow-beaten into a suirendry of their in- 
dependence to the insolent pretensions of any indi- 
vidual ; and the self-puffing censor, who aims at 
being universal umpire, will have the mortification 
to see that public, on whom he looks down with su- 
percilious contempt, instead of placing implicit con- 
fidence in his decrees, examining and deciding for 
themselves. He will have the mortification to see 
the very individuals whom he has denounced and 
marked for the grave, still living unhurt in the midst 
of execrations, which produce no effect except to 
burn and blister the lips that utter them ; and though 
it were more in character for such an intellectual 
Goliah to curse his opponents in the name of Dagon 
than in that of Jesus, yet, should he adopt the latter 
(making the gospel the vehicle of scandal, and sea- 
soning the doctrines of grace with malice), still re- 



60 FORGIVENESS OF INHJRIES. 

member that you have not so learned Christ; wiw 
forbids you to give place to the devil, and commanus 
you, putting aivay lying, to speak every man truth 
with his neighbour. Let not the subtiliry of an ad- 
versary beguile you into the spirit of the world, nor 
the rudeness of his attack provoke you to use in 
your defence the weapons of the world. These ill 
befit a Christian : these are not his armory. It was 
Abishai, not David, who proposed to go over and 
take off the head of Shimei that cursed him. 

It is not the prostration of an enemy, but the for- 
giveness of him, that evinces a Divine filiation, and 
conducts to the noblest victory : not perhaps the 
noblest in the estimation of partial friends, who, irri- 
tated by insult, wish to see you thrash an adver- 
sary : not in the estimation of men of honour, who 
account it magnanimous to avenge an injury. But 
are these the real judges of true greatness ? or are 
you influenced by the multitude ? Whom, then, call 
you the multitude? The pigmies on this little planet 
who surround you, or the principalities, and powers, 
and thrones, and dominions, and all those orders of 
perfect beings who throng the heavens, and fill the 
house of God's almightiness 1 Behold the thou- 
sands of thousands who minister unto him, and the 
ten thousand times ten thousand who stand before 
him ! In the estimation of these just appraisers of 
things, which, think you, is deemed more godlike, to 
forgive an injury or to avenge it ? Seeing, therefore, 
you are compassed about by so great a cloud of 
witnesses, lay aside all malice, and that wrath that 
will so easily beset you ; and on this article as ev* 



CHAE^CTER OF CHRIST. 61 

ery other, look with steady eye to Jesus Christ, the 
author and finisher of your faith. Had he — pardon, 
exahed Mediator, pattern of perfection, this deroga- 
ting supposition, made with reverential awe, and to 
exalt thy clemency — had he engaged in a single 
duel, or partook in one revengeful contest — but he 
did not. Whatever is endearing in goodness or 
touching in mercy, collected into one assemblage, 
forms his character ; a character on which arro- 
gance has not cast a shade or envy fixed a stain : 
a character splendid with virtues, which render pov- 
erty venerable and humility august. That great 
Exemplar of righteousness, the purity of whose life 
bajffled the scrutiny of malice, and compelled that 
bloodstained wretch, who had often sported with the 
rights of innocence, to exclaim, " I find no fault in 
the man," how did he meet injuries, and what was 
his demeanour towards his enemies ? 

Mark his entrance into Jerusalem, that city black- 
ened by crime and steeped in tl^e blood of martyrs. 
From the Mount of Olives it opened to his view ; 
at which sad sight he wept — wept, not over friends, 
but enemies ; enemies who had rejected, vilified, pe:r- 
secuted him ; and who were still waiting, with fiend- 
like impatience, to wreak their vengeance on his 
person, and quench their malice in his blood. Nor 
is this a solitary instance of benignity. Trace his 
paths from Bethlehem to Calvary, and you will find 
him everywhere meek, humble, long-suffering. Sur- 
rounded by adversaries, and called to meet calumny 
and persecution, he supoorted his matchless clem- 



62 DEATH OP CHRIST. 

\ency to the end ; and left the world good above 
conception, great beyond comparison. 

From the toils and trials of a distressing but per- 
fect life, follow this illustrious personage to the place 
of death. Approach his cross, and fix your atten- 
tion on the prodigies which signalize his sufferings, 
and stamp divinity on his martyrdom ! Think not 
that I allude to the terrific drapery which in that 
dread hour was flung around the great theatre of 

(nature. No : 'tis not the darkened sun, the burst- 
ing tombs, the quaking mountains, or the trembling 
world that I allude to ! These indeed are prodi- 
gies ; but these vanish before the still greater prod- 
igies of meekness, humility, and sin-forgiving good- 
ness displayed in the dying Saviour. When I be- 
hold him, amid the last agonies of dissolving nature, 
raising his dying eyes to heaven, and, forgetful of 
himself, interceding with the God of mercy with his 
last breath, and from his very cross, in behalf of 
those wretches whQse insatiable malice had fixed 
him there — then it is that the evidence of his claims 
rises to demonstration, and I feel the resistless force 
of that impassioned exclamation, which burst from 
the lips of infidelity itself, " If Socrates died as a 
philosopher, Jesus Christ died as a God !" 

And shall a worm covered with crimes, and living 
on sufferance in that same world where the agoni- 
zing Saviour uttered his dying supplication, and left 
his dying example for imitation — shall such a worm, 
tumid with resentment, lift his proud crest to his 
fellow-worm, and, incapable of mercy, talk of retri- 
bution ? No : blessed Jesus, thy death is an anti- 



A FORGIVING SPIRIT. 63 

dote to vengeance. At the foot of thy cross I meet 
my enemies, I forget their injuries, I bury my re- 
venge, and learn to forgive those who have done me 
wrong, as I also hope to be forgiven of thee. 

Almighty God, give us grace to do this, and to 
thy name shall be the glory. 



64 REASON AND REVELATION. 

IV. 

DELIVERED JULY 26, 1809. 

[Two opposite Systems offered to our acceptance, the one 
founded on Human Reason, the other on Divine Revelation. — 
Man, by his own wisdom, never has, nor ever can have, a 
true and proper conception of God.— Contradictory, false, and 
unworthy notions entertained by the wisest of the ancients 
in regard to the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, 
their confused and erroneous ideas as to Virtue and Vice, 
and the gross immoraUty of their Lives.— The appearance 
of Christianity in the World dispelled the darkness and de- 
lusion that had before universally prevailed, and brought in a 
new era of Light, and Hope, and of pure and perfect Mor- 
als. — The simplicity and purity of the Christian System soon 
corrupted by being incorporated with the errors of ancient 
Philosophy. — Modern Jnfidehty, and the pernicious and ab- 
surd Doctrines on which it is founded.— Skeptical System of 
Hume (see Note).— Infidelity and Christianity, in their Char- 
acter, Moral Effects, and ultimate Results, contrasted. — The 
Christian alone can have hope in Death, and assurance of a 
blessed Immortality. 

Young gentlemen, this day ive resign our charge, 
and you become tha ^nasters of your fortune. For 
the future, two opposite systems will offer you their 
guidance and proffer you their rewards. On the 
one hand, human reason ; on the other, Divine revela^ 
Hon, Which shall be the object of your choice 1 
Consider well the prerogatives of each, and then 
determine. 

Man is a created being, and therefore dependant 
Kelt'uer self-government nor self-guidance befits 
him. Unreserved submission to the will of his Crea- 
tor is, and must for ever be, the law of his nature. 
The first instance of departure from this law was the 



WEAKNESS OF HUMAN REASON. 65 

speculation indulged by the misguided parent of our 
race upon the tree of knowledge. You recollect the 
fatal incident. You have tasted, and still taste, the 
bitter consequences. One rash conclusion, drawn 
in opposition to the revealed will of God, was the 
inceptive step to apostacy, and issued in the destruc- 
tion of a world. Six thousand years have elapsed 
since this catastrophe, during which, in every na- 
tion, reason has asserted its claims and opened its 
schools, but nowhere has it done anything to re- 
cover its fallen glory. Not a beam of light has it 
shed on that moral darkness which enshrouds the 
world. The nations whom faith guides not, still 
grope benighted ; and all the efforts of their sages 
only prove that this world by wisdom knows not God. 
And how should this world by wisdom know him ? 
To deduce the character and design of a workman 
from his workmanship, the entire fabric which he 
has constructed must be understood. But of all 
that Omnipotence hath done, we have seen a small 
part only ; and that part we comprehend not, or, 
at most, but imperfectly comprehend. How pre- 
posterous for a being who yesterday emerged from 
the dust, and to-morrow will return to dust again, to 
pretend, by searching to find out God^ or by re- 
searching to find out the Almighty to perfection. 
What homage he requires of us ; whether he is pro- 
pitious or inexorable to sinners ; or, if propitious, 
in ivhat way ? These are questions that philosophy 
agitates only to darken. It mocks with delusive 
and conjectural answers the interrogatories of the 
dying sinner, and the foundation which it lays to 
F 



66 PHILOSOPHY. 

sustain his immortal hopes is as faithless and insuffi- 
cient as hay, wood, and stubble would be for the 
base of a pyramid. The more ingenuous of the 
pagans acknowledge their weakness and deplore 
their ignorance. At Athens, the seat of science, 
there stood an altar inscribed, confessedly, to the 
unknown God; and even that prince of philoso- 
phers, Socrates himself, wavered and hesitated at 
the moment of his death. Others indeed there 
have been, less humble than Socrates, who have 
dared to pronounce upon the character of God and 
the chief good of man. But the systems which 
imbody their dogmas are now known only as mon- 
uments of human weakness or of human wicked- 
ness. 

Do you wish for proof of this ? — the schools of 
philosophy will furnish it. 

That the world arose from chance, and that the 
providence of God does not extend to it ; that sen- 
sual pleasure constitutes the supreme good, and that 
virtue for its own sake is unworthy of esteem or 
choice, were doctrines of the Epicureans. 

That it is impossible to arrive at truth ; that the 
existence of God is doubtful ; that the immortality 
of the soul is doubtful ; that whether virtue is pref- 
erable to vice is doubtful, were doctrines of the 
Academics. 

Aristotle taught, that God, though happy in him- 
self, was regardless of the happiness and indiffer- 
ent to the virtue of man. The Stoics, that God 
was under the control of fate. The Persian phi- 
losophers, that there was not one God, but two — 



CHARACTER OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 67 

coequal, coeternal, and with opposite characters and 
interests. 

It was not illustrious virtues, but egregious crimes, 
that signalized the gods and goddesses of Greece 
and Rome. Hence that degeneracy of manners 
which became so universal. A father, without re- 
proach, might adopt or abandon his infant child. 
The massacre of slaves formed a customary part 
of the funeral solemnity. For having asserted the 
rights and defended the liberties of their country, 
prisoners of war were crucified. Unnatural lust 
was sanctioned by high authority, and even public 
brothels were consecrated as an act of religious 
worship. 

This degeneracy was the natural result of their 
philosophy. Zeno had taught them that all crimes 
were equal. Cleanthes, that children might devour 
their parents ; and Diogenes, that parents might de- 
vour their children. Plato, that lewdness was jus- 
tifiable ; and even Cicero, that it was only a venial 
fault. The lives of the philosophers corresponded 
with their doctrines ; nor were their examples less 
infamous than their dogmas. If Plutarch can be 
believed, both Socrates and Plato were intemperate 
and incontinent. Nor w^as the character of Seneca 
less execrable, if Dion Cassius can be believed. 
Xenophon was a sodomite. Aristippus kept a se- 
raglio, and Zeno murdered himself. Such was the 
wisdom of philosophy ; such were the examples it 
furnished ; such the morals it inculcated. 

In the midst of this night of pagan darkness the 
Sun of righteousness burst upon the world. As 



/ 



68 CHRISTIANITY CORRUPTED BY PHILOSOPHY. 

from a long and deathlike slumber, the nations 
awoke to behold its splendours. A new era com- 
menced. The unlettered apostle delivered his art- 
less narrative, and the omnipotence of truth was 
felt. Kingdom followed kingdom in making their 
submissions, till at length the new religion was es- 
tablished throughout the Roman empire. 

Christianity was now in prosperity. Philosophy 
therefore courted her alliance. It was granted. 
But did either faith or morals gain by the conces- 
sion ? No : on the contrary, morals were subverted 
and faith bewildered by those mystic mazes through 
which the Gnostic teachers led their hearers. The 
gospel, thus adulterated by those unhallowed ingre- 
dients which philosophy mixed with it, lost its char- 
acteristic influence. The simplicity of truth disap- 
peared ; the fervour of piety disappeared ; a spirit 
of dogmatizing ensued, and the minds of men were 
gradually prepared, by perplexing and contradictory 
theories, for that profound indifference to truth, that 
absolute lethargy of mind, which characterized the 
dark ages. 

When, however, the Peripatetic philosophy was 
superseded by the Cartesian, this unnatural alliance 
was dissolved. Then reason, abjuring that faith 
which it had courted and corrupted, under the name 
of infidelity commenced a new era. 

To detail the systems of Herbert, Hobbes, 
/ Shaftesbury, Wollaston, Tindal, Chubb, and Boling- 
-^ broke, would be as tedious as unedifying : suffice 
it to say, that the reign of reason was the jubilee of 
sinners. Every important duty was weakened; 



MODERN INFIDELS. 69 

every detestable crime was palliated by some one or 
other of these new apostles. Each contested the 
palm of having contributed most towards subverting 
the morals and unsettling the opinions of mankind. 
Amid this galaxy of malignant stars, Hume arose, 
in whose sickly light all things appeared dim and 
doubtful. Real life vanished ; the material universe 
vanished ; the souls of men vanished ; and spectres 
only flitted through the brain. To whom the award 
was due it was no longer doubtful. Even his com- 
petitors stood amazed at the bolder march of his 
genius, who, by one mighty effort, subverted both his 
own and all other systems, and reached at once the 
point of universal skepticism.* 

* What illumination was shed on the science of unbelief by 
this great master of negations, can be known only by the peru- 
sal of his writmgs. To those who have not access to those wri- 
tings, the following summary (the fidelity of which, Bishop 
Horn says, was never, so far as he could find, questioned) may 
serve as a specimen. 

OF THE SOUL. 

That the soul of man is not the same this moment that it 
was the last ; that we know not what it is ; that it is not one 
thing, but many things ; and that it is nothing at all. That in 
this soul is the agency of all the causes that operate throughout 
the sensible creation ; and yet, that in this soul there is neither 
power nor agency, nor any idea of either. 

That matter and motion may often be regarded as the cause 
of thought. 

OF THE UNIVERSE. 

That the external world does not exist, or that its existence 
may reasonably be doubted. 

That the universe exists in the mind, and that mind does not 
exist. 

That the universe is nothing but a heap of perceptions with- 
out a substance. 

That though a man could bring himself to believe, yea, and 
have reason to believe, that everything in the universe proceeds 



70 SENTIMENTS OF HUME. 

(Philosophy had to make but a single advance 
more to reach its tUtimatum. That advance it has 

from some cause, yet it would be unreasonable for him to be- 
lieve that the universe itself proceeds from some cause. 

OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 

That the perfection of human knowledge is to doubt. 

That we ought to doubt of everything, yea, of our doubts 
tnemselves ; and, therefore, the utmost that philosophy can do 
is to give a doubtful solution of doubtful doubts. 

That the human understanding, acting alone, does entirely 
subvert itself, and prove by argument that by argument no 
thing can be proved. 

That man, in all his perceptions, actions, and vohtions, is a 
mere passive machine, and has no separate existence of his 
own, being entirely made up of other things, of the existence 
of which he is by no means certain ; and yet the nature of all 
things depends so much upon man, that two and two could not 
produce four, nor fire produce heat, nor the sun light, without 
nn act of the human understanding. 



That it is unreasonable to believe God to be infinitely wise 
and good while there is any evil or disorder in the universe. 

That vie have no good reason to think the universe proceeds 
from a cause. 

That, as the existence of the external world is questionable, 
we are at a loss to find arguments by which we may prove the 
existence of the Supreme Being, or any of his attributes. 

That when we speak of power as an attribute of any being, 
God himself not excepted, we use words without meaning. 

That we can form no idea of power, nor any being endued 
with power, m.uch less one endued with supreme power; and 
that we can never have reason to beheve that any object, oi 
quality of any object exists, of which we cannot form an idea. 

OF THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTIONS. 

That every human action is necessary, and could not have 
been different from what it is. 

That moral, intellectual, and corporeal virtues are nearly of 
the same kind. In other words, that to want honesty, to want 
understanding, and to want a leg, are equally the objects of 
moral disapprobation. 

That adultery must be practised if man would acquire all the 
advantages of life ; that, if generally practised, it would in time 



INFIDEL EXAMPLE OP FRANCE. 71 

Since made, passing by an easy and natural transit 
tion from wavering skepticism to confirmed atheism. 
A great nation, energized by the doctrines of its sa- 
pient declairners against God and nature, has arisen 
in its strength, and shaken off the restraints of moral 
obligation, as the toiled lion shakes from his mane 
the dewdrops of the morning. By a solemn de- 
cree, Jehovah has been banished from his empire 
and his throne ; the universe absolved from its alle- 
giance ; the earth converted into one vast common, 
and the men and women who inhabit it turned out 
like cattle to herd together. By a solemn decree, ' \ 
too, the soul has been deprived of immortality ; and, y 
lest the sepulchre should permit the bodies it impris- j^ 
ons to escape, death has been declared by law to be / 
evei^lasting sleep. 

But let us turn from this lunacy of the schools, 
these ravings of distempered minds. Thanks to our 
God, we are not under the necessity of following 
such guides. He who formerly sent his prophets 
to enlighten mankind, has in these last ages spoken 
to the world by his Son. How know we this ] By 
evidence the most indubitable. In him the proph- 
ecies were fulfilled ; by him the gift of healing was 
dispensed ; unheard-of miracles sealed his commis- 
sion, and the doctrines he delivered evinced that he 
was sent of God. 

cease to be scandalous ; and that, if practised secretly and fre- 
quently, it would by degrees come to be thought no crime at all. 
Lastly, as the soul of man, according to Mr. Hume, becomes 
Bvery moment a different being, the consequence must be, that 
the crimes committed by him at one time are not imputable to 
him at another. 



72 THE CHRISTIAN, PAGAN, AND ATHEIST. 

It is as characteristic of revelation to exalt, a» it 
is of philosophy to degrade human nature. The 
unity and perfection of God support, and are sup- 
ported in, every part of this heaven-descended sys- 
tem. In the light of His uncreated glory whom 
the Scriptures reveal, contemplate the obscene and 
cruel rabble of pagan divinities. Beside the Chris- 
tian, offering the homage of his heart to the author 
of his being, behold the Greek, celebrating with 
songs the lascivious Pan, or the Roman, inebriated 
''"sat the orgies of the drunken Bacchus. But if the 
pagan appears degraded in the presence of the 
Christian, much more does the skeptic and the athe- 
ist appear so. To the one it is God who rides 
upon the storm and directs the tempest. To the 
other, the tumult of the elements is the confusion 
of chance. Rich in prospect, the one looks up to 
immortality, and fastens his hope to the rock of ages. 
The being of the other hangs on nothing, and he 
has nothing in expectancy but to drop from life into 
eternal non-existence. 

It was not reason, but revelation, that brought fu- 
turity to light ; that discovered an atonement ; that 
proved sin pardonable, and God, against whom it is 
committed, propitious. 

The Bible is as pure in its morals as it is spirit- 
ual in its worship or rich in its hopes. By its 
sanctifying influence thousands have been subdued 
to holiness and raised to happiness. Not like the 
bewildering theories of the schools, it speaks to the 
conscience, and its influence is seen in the life of 
man. Were its rules of acti jn observed, war would 



CHRISTIANITY AS CONNECTED WITH MORALS. 73 

cease ; injustice would cease ; and the earth would 
become an asylum of righteousness. Of Christian 
nations, in the strict and proper acceptation of the 
term, we cannot speak ; because in this sense there 
are no Christian nations. Here and there only an 
individual is found whose character is formed on 
the model, and whose conduct is regulated by the 
maxims of Christianity. Small as this number is, 
they everywhere counteract the dominion of sin, and 
exert on every community in which they reside a 
redeeming influence. These unassuming, and often 
obscure individuals, sprinkled like salt among the 
nations, impart a tincture of godliness, which, though 
it heals not, preserves the common mass from putre- 
faction. Hence, wherever the gospel is preached, 
the standard of morals is raised, and public opinion 
banishes those gross and brutal crimes Vt'hich were 
unblushingly committed in pagan countries. At 
home and abroad alike we see this position verified. 
No massacre of slaves signalizes the death of our 
patriots ; no theatre exhibits for the amusement of 
our populace the horrid spectacle of lacerated com- 
batants ; no impure temples invite our youths to 
lascivious banquets ; nor in any part of Christen- 
dom does there stand an altar for human sacrifice. 

But if mankind in general are indebted to Chris- 
tianity for the amelioration of their condition, much 
more are the poor and the friendless indebted to it 
for this. Of these the Christian lawgiver has taken 
especial cognizance ; for these he has made especial 
provision. To those whom philosophy disregarded 
is the gospel preached. More than this : in that 



74 DOCTRINE OP THE RESURRECnON, 

gospel their rights are guarded, and relief is provided 
for their miseries by that celestial charity which it 
inculcates. How must the heart susceptible of pity 
vibrate at the rehearsal of those words of Jesus 
Christ, uttered during his humiliation, and which he 
will repeat when he shall appear in his triumph: 
" Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me 
meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was 
a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye 
clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was 
in prison, and ye came unto me ;" adding, " Inas- 
much as ye have done this unto one of the least of 
these my disciples, ye have done it unto me." 

The resurrection of the body is peculiarly a doc- 
trine of revelation. Philosophy shed no light upon 
the sepulchre. It was not till the star of Judah 
arose that the grave ceased to be dark and som- 
brous ; and had he, whose goings forth were from 
Bethlehem, announced this single oracle, "Behold, 
the hour is coming in which all they that are in 
their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, 
and come forth ; they that have done good to the 
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to 
the resurrection of condemnation," and added no 
more, his mission had been deserving of that costly 
exhibition of types which prefigured, and of mira- 
cles which confirmed it. How much more so, then, 
since it has put not only the question of the resur- 
rection of the body, but that of the immortality of 
the soul also to rest: since it has imbodied tb<^ 



EJBAS^ON AND REVELATION. 75 

purest system of morals, the sublimest system of 
doctrines ; since it has called into action immortal 
virtues, and awakened deathless hopes. How much 
more so, since it has held out to righteousness the 
strongest of possible motives, and imposed on un- 
righteousness the strongest possible restraints. To 
the sinner it is announced, that, however he may 
escape punishment from man, the Lord our God 
will not suffer him to escape his righteous judg- 
ments : that, when the Son of Man shall come to 
be glorified in his saints, he will also execute eternal 
vengeance on his enemies. 

In whatever light the claims of these two systems 
which offer you their guidance are viewed, the odds 
appears immense. 

Reason tells the parent of a family that his chil- 
dren are no better than vermin, and that he is not 
even bound to rear them. Revelation tells him 
that they are heaven-descended, and that he must 
tiain them up for glory. 

Reason tells the child that gray hairs are a re- 
proach ; that filial gratitude is not a virtue ; and 
that he is at liberty to abandon his aged parents. 
Revelation tells him to reverence the hoary head ; 
as he hopes for long life, to honour, in the Lord, 
those to whom he is indebted for his being; and 
that the eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth 
to obey its mother, the eagle shall pick it out, and 
the young eagle shall eat it. 

Reason tells the sufferer that his pains are im« 
aginary, and, if not imaginary, that they are irre- 
mediable, and must therefore be borne in hopeless 



76 REASON AND REVELATION. 

and sullen silence. Revelation tells him that they 
are parental chastisements, enduring but for a mo* 
ment, and that they shall work out for him a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 

Reason tells the mourner that his tears are as 
absurd as useless, for the grave is a place of oblivion, 
and that the dead have perished for ever. Revela- 
tion tells him that they are invisible only, not extinct ; 
and repeats, beside the urn that contains their ashes, 
" This corruption shall put on incorruption, and this 
mortal immortality,^'' 

But it is at the bed of sickness and in the hour 
of dissolution that the superior claims of revelation 
are most apparent. Here reason is dumb, or only 
speaks to aggravate the miseries, and render still 
more horrible the horrors of the death-scene. No 
relief is given to soften the grim visage of the king 
of terrors. As nearer he approaches, how the night 
darkens ! how the grave deepens ! Trembling on 
its verge, the affrighted soul asks what the nature 
of death is. And the grave — what are its domin- 
ions 1 The treacherous guide answers, " Both are 
unknown : that darkness no eye penetrates ; that 
profound no line measures. It is conjectured to be 
the entrance to eternal and oblivious sleep ; the pre- 
cipice down which existence tumbles. Beyond that 
gulf which has swallowed up the dead and is swal- 
lowing up the living, neither foresight nor calculation 
reaches. What follows is unknowable; ask not 
concerning it ; thus far philosophy has guided you ; 
but without a guide, and blindfold, you must take 
the last decisive leap— perchance to hell, perchance 



TRIUMPHANT DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN. 77 

to non-existence I" How the scene brightens when 
revelation is appealed to ! As the ark of the testi- 
mony is opened, a voice is heard to say, " / am the 
resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live again.^^ It 
is the voice of the angel of the covenant. His 
bow of promise is seen arching the sky, and reach- 
ing down even to the sepulchre, whose dark caverns 
by its radiance are illuminated. Behind those mists 
of Hades, so impenetrable to the eye of reason, 
eternal mansions rise in prospect. Already the ag- 
ony of death is passed. To the redeemed sinner 
there is but one pang more. Shouting victory, he 
endures that pang ; and, while he is enduring it, the 
last cloud vanishes from the firmament, and the 
heavens become bright and serene for ever. 

Young gentlemen, I shall not longer detain you. 
In a more exalted sense than could be said of Cato 
at Utica, 

** Your life, your death, your bane and antidote, 
Are both before you." 

You must choose between them, and that choice 
will decide your destiny. May Almighty God di* 
rect you in it, and to his name shall be the glorv- 



78 SEPARATION OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS. 

V. 

DELIVERED JULY 24, 1811 

[Painful feelings of Teachers in parting from their Pupils. — 
Responsibility of Teachers.— Constant succession of Actors 
on the stage of Life. — Motives held out to the Young to act 
their part well. — Discouragements to an honourable Ambition 
removed. — The examples of Howard, Sharpe, Clarkson, and 
Lancaster. — A mixture of virtuous and vicious Characters in 
the World. — The practice of Virtue, even as it regards this 
Life, to be preferred.— But there is a God : Man is accountable 
and immortal, and should act with constant reference to these 
great Truths. — Concluding Exhortation.] 

Young gentlemen, another collegiate anniversary 
has arrived. Again we are called to reciprocate 
our commingled joys and sorrows. Parting address- 
es occupy us ; parting sympathies afflict us ; and the 
sundering ties of duty and of friendship admonish us 
that another year has been measured by the rapid 
flow of time : that resistless torrent, which is ingulf- 
ing in its course the members of human society, 
and sweeping away the monuments of human glory. 

To us, your instructers, this is a moment of the 
deepest as well as of the tenderest interest. Here 
we stand like the sorrow-stricken parent at the 
threshold of his door, whither he has accompanied 
his adventurous sons, leaving their parental home to 
return no more. My God ! what a trust, what re- 
sponsibility is this ! to be the appointed guardians 
of the public hopes and the public safety ; to feed 
and direct those streams which, as they flow, must 
either desolate or fertilize our country, and the 



CONSTANT SUCCESSION OF ACTORS. 79 

churches of our God ; to train and send abroad an 
annual corps of actors destined to corrupt or to re- 
form life's ever-varying drama, and prove the future 
benefactors or the future scourge of mankind. 

To you, our pupils, this is a moment of no com- 
mon interest. That world on which you are enter- 
ing, like this retreat of science you are leaving, 
changes with rapid succession its inhabitants. As 
you approach it, indeed, every place of honour, of 
confidence, of profit, appear preoccupied : there 
seems to be no room for action. The thought op- 
presses you, and you feel, perhaps, a kind of melan- 
choly presage of that penury and obscurity which, 
from the present state of things, you must be doom- 
ed to suffer. Believe me, it is a deceptive view 
that you are taking. If all those places of honour, 
of profit, of confidence, are not already vacant, it is 
precisely the same to you as if they were so. 
Death and age are vacating, and will vacate them 
in time for you to occupy. Soon the laurels of 
yonder hero will have withered ; those venerable 
senators will be incapable of legislating ; those eru- 
dite judges of presiding ; the tongue of that resist- 
less advocate will falter as he pleads ; the persua- 
sive accents of yonder pulpit orator will die away 
and be heard no more ; and all that intelligence and 
virtue, that active and successful talent which adorns 
the age, will disappear, and its honoured possessors, 
conducted in succession to their graves, will moul- 
der amid sepulchral ashes, forgotten, or remembered 
only by the monuments of glory they shall have 
during their transitory life erected. 



80 CLAIMS ON THE YOUNG. 

As you advance, the stage will clear before you ; 
and the honours, the responsibilities, the treasures, 
and the destinies of mankind will be committed to 
the rising generation, of which you form a part; 
and at the head of which you may, and ought to 
hold a conspicuous rank. They who now award to 
you these collegiate honours — he who now addresses 
to you this collegiate charge — this board of trust — 
that board of regency, will soon give place : and 
this seat of science- — what am I saying 1 every seat 
of science, every temple of law, of justice, and of 
grace, will be placed under your care and guardian- 
ship. To you, under God, the state, the church, 
the world, must look for whatever of good it hopes 
for, or of evil it dreads. 

Entering on such a theatre under such circum- 
stances, can you disappoint the high hopes of those 
parents who will leave you the inheritors of their for- 
tunes and the guardians of their fame ? Can you 
disregard the reasonable claims of that future public, 
that will soon be anxious to employ you in its ser- 
vice and to crown you with its honours ? Entering 
on such a theatre in such circumstances, are you will- 
ing to disgrace yourselves by meanness or to de- 
stroy yourselves by wickedness] Are you willing 
to forego the glory to which God calls you, and to 
prostitute the talents God has given you ? To em- 
ploy your intellectual vigour in maturing and evolv- 
ing plans of lust and treachery ; to become the 
companions of the vile, the panders of the projfli- 
gate, the ministers of evil, and coadjutors of Sa- 
tan ; in distracting human society, in disturbing hu- 



CALLS TO ACTIVE EXERTION. 81 

man peace, and in counteracting the benevolent pur- 
poses of Deity ] Your hearts revolt from the idea ; 
you shudder at the thought. Such, however, is 
truly the sinner's employment, such his character, 
and such surely will be yours if you attach your- 
selves to his society and accompany him in his ca- 
reer ; your influence will become malignant, your 
example infectious, and your names descend to pos- 
terity black with iiifamy. Sin diseases the body : 
it degrades the mind, and damns alike the reputation 
and the soul. In the records of human glory which 
are kept in heaven, there is not inscribed one profli- 
gate, unreclaimed, unrepentant sinner's name. 

You will not make the profligate's wretched 
choice, his desperate sacrifice. Your past conduct, 
your present resolutions, are pledges that you will 
not : God grant you may not ; but it is not enough 
that you will not do this. 

Again I ask, therefore, whether, entering on such 
a theatre under such circumstances — a theatie where 
there is so much good to be accomplished and so 
much glory to be won — whether the mere negative 
.praise of living harmless and inoffensive is all you 
aspire to ? Are you willing, after all the pains which 
have been taken with you, after all the treasures 
that have been expended on you, after all the pray- 
ers that have been offered up for you — are you will- 
ing to. become, not to say injurious, but useless to 
society ? Are you willing merely to grovel through 
life ; to creep away from this seminary like unfledg- 
ed reptiles from their cells, and, buried in obscurity, 
pass your future years in inglorious sloth, till finally, 



82 IISDIVIDUAL EFFORTS AND EXAMPLES. 

mere excrescences, you perish unnoticed, unremem- 
bered, and unlamented ? willing to perish from that 
world in which you received your being, without 
having wiped away a tear, without having mitigated a 
sorrow, without having imparted a pulse of joy, or 
left one monument on earth, or sent one messenger 
to heaven, to testify that you have not lived liter 
ally in vain ? Can the vivacious, the buoyant, the 
bold, the daring spirit of ingenuous youth be satis- 
fied by the prospect of such a destiny 1 

But what can a youthful adventurer, a mere indi- 
vidual, hope to accomplish for the benefit of virtue 
or the world ? What ! Almost anything he wills to 
undertake and dares to persevere in. This world 
is made up of individuals. All the fame that has 
been acquired, all the infamy that has been merit- 
ed, all the plans of happiness or misery that have 
been formed, all the enterprises of loyalty or of 
treason that have been executed, have owed their 
existence to the wisdom or folly, to the courage or 
temerity of individuals — mere youthful adventurers 
as you are ; 'and, though only individuals, each of 
you possesses a capacity for doing either good or 
evil, which human foresight cannot measure nor hu- 
man power limit. Your immediate exertions may 
benefit or injure some ; your example may reach 
others ; those whom your example reaches may 
communicate their feelings to individuals more re- 
mote, by whom those feelings may be again com- 
municated to those who will recommunicate them : 
all of whom may transmit the influence which com- 
menced with you to a succeeding generation, whicH 



POWER OF INDIVIDUALS. 83 

in it^ turn may transmit it to the next, to be again 
transiniued. Thus the impulj^e given either to vir- 
tue or to vice by a single individual may be immeas- 
urably extended, even to distant nations, and com- 
municated through succeeding ages to the remotC'^t 
generations. 

Voltaire, Rousseau, and their infidel coadjutors 
collected their materials, and laid a train which pro- 
duced that fatal explosion which shook the civilized 
world to its centre. Governments were dismem- 
bered ; monarchies wxre overthrown ; institutions 
were swept away ; society was flung into confusion ; 
human Ufe v/as endangered : years have elapsed ; 
the face of Europe is yet covered with wrecks and 
desolations ; and how long before the world will 
recover from the disastrous shock their conspiracy 
occasioned, God only knows. Yet Voltaire, Rous- 
seau, and their infidel coadjutors were individuals. 

Did not Cyrus sway the opinions, awe the fears, 
and direct the energies of the world at Babylon? 
Did not Caesar do this at Rome, and Constantine 
at Byzantium ? And yet Cyrus, Caesar, and Con- 
stantine were individuals. But they were fortunate ; 
they lived at critical conjunctures, and in fields of 
blood gathered immortality. And is it at critical 
conjunctures, and in fields of blood only, that im- 
mortality can be gathered ? Where then is Howard^ 
that saint of illustrious memory, who traversed his 
native country, exploring the jail and the prison-ship, 
taking the dimensions of that misery which these 
caverns of vice, of disease, and of death had so long 
concealed 1 whose heroic deeds of charity the dun- 



84 HOWARD. SHARPE. 

geons alike of Europe and of Asia witnessed ; and 
whose bones now consecrate the confines of distant 
Tartary, where he fell a martyr to his zeal — when, 
like an angel of peace, he was engaged in convey- 
ing through the cold, damp, pestilential cells of Rus- 
sian Crimea the lamp of hope and the cup of con- 
solation to the incarcerated slave, who languished 
unknown, unpitied, and forgotten there. 

Where is Grenville Sharpe^ the negro's advocate, 
whose disinterested efforts, whose seraphic elo- 
quence, extorted from a court tinctured with the re- 
mains of feudal tyranny that memorable decision 
of Lord Mansfield, which placed an eternal shield 
between the oppressor and the oppressed ; which 
raised a legal barrier around the very person of the 
\ enslaved African, and rendered liberty thereafter in- 
"— -*^ separable from the soil of the seagirt isles of Brit- 
"^ 5 ain ? It was this splendid triumph of reason over 
passion, of justice over prejudice, that called from 
the Irish orator that burst of ingenuous feeling at 
the trial of Rowan, when he said, •' I speak in the 
t- spirit of the British law, which proclaims even to the 
yf stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his 
foot on British earth, that the ground on which he 
treads is holy. No matter in what language his 
doom may have been pronounced : no matter what 
complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or 
an African sun may have burned upon him : no 
^ matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have 

^yj been cloven down : no matter with what solemnities 
/J he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery, 
f I tjie first moment he touches the sacred soil of Brit- 



i\ 



CLARKSON. 85 

am, the altar and the god sink together in the dust ; fT) 
his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; his body v¥7 
swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst / 
from around him, and he stands redeemed, emanci- ^^ 
pated, disenthralled, by the irresistible genius ofwm- i / 
versal emancipation.^^ .. 

Where is Clarkson, who has been so triumphantly 
successful in wiping away the reproach of slavery 
from one quarter of the globe, and in restoring to 
the rights of fraternity more than twenty millions of 
the human family : that man who, after so many / j 
years of reproach and contumely — after sufferings \ j 
and perseverance which astonish as much as they \/ 
instruct us, succeeded in turning the current of na- fs 
tional feeling, in awaking the sense of national jus- 
tice, and, finally, in obtaining from the Parliament of 
England that glorious act, the abolition of the slave- 
trade? an act to which the royal signature was 
affixed at noonday, and just as the sun reached the 
meridian : a time fitly chosen for the consummation 
of so splendid a transaction — a transaction which 
reflects more honour on the king, the Parliament, 
the people, than any other recorded in the annals of 
history. Where is this man, whose fame I had 
rather inherit than that of Csesar ? for it will be 
more deathless, as it is already more sacred. And 
should Africa ever arise from her present degrada- 
tion — and rise she will, if there be any truth in God — 
what a perpetual flow of heartfelt eulogy will, to a 
thousand generations, commemorate the virtues, the 
suflTerings, and the triumph of the ingenuous, the dis* 
interested, the endeared, the immortal Clarkson-— 



66 LANCASTER. 

the negro's friend, the black man's hope, the de- 
spised African's benefactor ! 

Where is Lancaster^ who has introduced and is 
introducing a new era in the history of letters, and 
rendering the houses of education, like the temples 
of grace, accessible to the poor? owing to whose 
exertions and enterprises thousands of children, 
picked from the dirt and collected from the streets, 
are this day enjoying the inestimable benefits of ed- 
ucation, and forming regular habits of industry and 
virtue, who must otherwise have been doomed, by 
the penury of their condition, to perpetual ignorance, 
and probably to perpetual misery. 

Ah ! had this man lived but tw^o thousand years 
ago — to say nothing of the effect which might have 
been produced on morals and happiness generally 
by the wide diffusion of knowledge and the regular 
formation of habits — to say nothing of that vulgar 
ity which would have been diminished, or of that 
dignity which might have been imparted to the char- 
acter of the species — couid this man have lived two 
thousand years ago, and all the rude materials in 
society have undergone only that slight polishing 
which, under his fostering care, they are now likely 
to undergo, how many mines of beauty and riches 
would have appeared ! How many gems, madf 
visible by their glittering, would have been collected 
from among the rubbish I Or, to speak without a 
figure, had this man lived two thousand years ago, 
how much talent might have been discovered for tl)€ 
church, for the state, for the world, among those un- 
tutored millions who have floated unknown and un- 



GENUINE PHILANTHROPY. 87 

noticed down the tide of time ? Had this man lived 
two thousand years ago, how many Demosthenes 
might have lightened and thundered ? How many 
Homers soared and sung ? How many Newtons 
roused into action, to develop the laws of matter ? 
How many Lockes to explore the regions of mind ? 
How many Mansfields to exalt the bench? How 
many Erskines to adorn the bar? And perhaps 
some other Washington, whose memory has now / 
perished in obscurity, might have been forced from 
the factory or the plough to decide the fate of battle 
and sustain the weight of empire. 

And yet Howard, Sharpe, Clarkson, and Lancas- 
ter, were individuals ; and individuals, too, gifted by 
no extraordinary talents, favoured by no pecuhar 
theatre of action. They were only common men, 
brought up in the midst of common life. No 
princely fortunes had descended to them ; no pater- 
nal influence had devolved on them ; no aspiring 
rivals provoked their emulation ; no great emergen- 
cies roused their exertions. They produced, if I 
may so speak, the incidents which adorn their his- 
tory, and created for themselves a theatre of action. 
Animated by the purest virtue, and bent on being 
useful, they seized on the miseries of life as the 
world presented them ; and by deeds of charity and 
valour performed in relieving those miseries, they ,^ 
converted the very abodes of ignorance and wo into/ 
a theatre of glory. 

And, young gentlemen, after all that has been 
done by these patrons of virtue, these benefactors 
of mankind, remains there no prejudice to correct ; 



88 RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE EDUCATED. 

no ignorance to instruct ; no vice to reclaim ; no 
misery to alleviate ? Look around you : still there 
is room for youihful enterprise, tor manly exertion. 
Go, then, into the world : cherish the spirit, imitate 
the example, and emulate the glory of these illus- 
trious worthies. Let no disasters shake your forti- 
tude ; let no impediments interrupt your career. 
Come what will, of this be assured, that in every 
enterprise of good God will be on your side ; and 
that, should you even fail, failure will be glorious : 
nor will it ever be said in heaven of the man who 
has sincerely laboured on the earth to glorify his 
God or benefit his country, that he has lived in vain. 

Whatever profession you may select, enter it with 
zeal, with ardour, with elevated and expanded views, 
with noble and disinterested motives, as becomes a 
youth of liberal education, an enlightened adven- 
turer, bent on glory, and setting out in a career of 
immortality. Always be alive to the promotion of 
virtue, to the suppression of vice, to the relief of 
misery. Always be projecting and maturing new 
plans of public and glorious enterprise : nor feel as 
if anything had been done while anything of good 
remains to be accomplished. 

It is a false as well as a degrading doctrine, that 
you were made for individual benefit, and live only 
for yourselves. This is true of no one. Much 
less is it true of j/ow, whom God has selected t>om 
the multitude, and distinguished by better means 
and greater opportunities. And why has he dons 
this ] From individual partiality 1 No. Doubt- 
less not. But that he may qualify a chosen num- 



SELFISHNESS NOT UNIVERSAL. 89 

ber to fill a higher station ; to move in a more ex- 
tended sphere, and practise a sulfimer charity. He 
has done this that you may become the guides of 
the ignorant, the benefactors of the wretched, the 
patrons of the multitude ; that you may protect the 
more effectually the poor that cry ; the fatherless, 
and him that hath none to help him ; that you may 
be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame ; that the de- 
fenceless may be shielded by your influence, the 
profligate awed by your integrity, and the country 
saved by your virtue and your valour. 

But, when all the world are mean and mercenary, 
is it to be expected that you will be dignified and dis- 
interested 1 It is false. All the world are not mean 
and mercenary. If it were so, the stream of life 
would have corrupted as it flowed, and the race be- 
come extmct. 

It is conceded, because it cannot be denied, that 
mean and mercenary motives prevail ; that a crowd 
of guilty actors have converted the drama of life 
into one vast exhibition of fraud and falsehood, of 
deceit and treachery, of avarice and revelry : among 
whom personal interest predominates, and individual 
emolument forms the bond of criminal alliance. 
But at the same time it is contended that there ex- 
ists a countervailing influence ; that a coimter scene 
is continually carried forward, in which actions of a 
diflferent type are unfolded : actions which tend to 
relieve the picture of human guilt, and soften the 
intenseness of human misery. In the worst of 
times and in the most depraved of countries, there 
are always scattered some individuals of a benign 
H 



90 DEGREES OF VIRTUE. 

and virtuous character, whose benevolent exertions 
are limited by no boundaries of territory, shades of 
complexion, or ties of blood ; who, with a perseve- 
rance that never relaxes and a vigilance that never 
slumbers, are pursuing, not their own, but the public 
welfare ; whose hours of relaxation and of business 
are alike occupied with plans of utility or of reform ; 
and the grand and predominant obiect of whose ex- 
ertions and whose prayers is the happiness of the 
human family. 

If you knew the world better than you do, you 
would know that it comprises a great variety of 
character : " that none are absolutely perfect ; that 
those who approach towards perfection are few ; 
that the bulk of mankind are very imperfect, and 
that many, but not the majority, are exceedingly 
profligate, deceitful, and wicked." 

But, though the world were universally as mean 
and mercenary as the objection states, it would not 
alter the counsel we are giving you. In such a 
world it would behoove you, the alumni of this seat 
of science, to be nobly singular. From such so- 
ciety I would separate ; against such principles 1 
would protest. However the multitude might live, 
for my single self I would act uprightly ; I would 
frown on vice, I would favour virtue — favour what- 
ever would elevate, would exalt, would adorn char- 
acter, and alleviate the miseries of my species, or 
contribute to render the world I inhabited, like the 
heavens to which I looked, a place of innocence 
and felicity. Though all mankind were profligate 
X would, by a uniform course of probity ^nd integ- 



INHERENT DIGNITY OP VIRTUE. 9^ 

rity, show in what school I had been nurtured and 
to what faith I belonged. 

And I would do this, because I would rather 
stand alone, or be pointed at among only those ten 
righteous men who would have saved Sodom, than 
swell the number of my companions by all the vag- 
abond profligates that could be raked from the sew*- 
ers of earth or collected from the caverns of hell. 

Even though there were no God- no immortali- 
ty — no accountability, I would do this. Vice in it- 
self is mean, degrading, detestable : virtue com- 
mendable, exalted, ennobling. Though I were to 
exist no longer than those ephemera that sport in 
the beams of the summer's morn, during that short , 
hour I would rather soar with the eagle, and leave 
the record of my flight and of my fall among the 
stars, than to creep the gutter with the reptile, and 
bed my memory and my body together in the dung- 
hill. However short my part, I would act it well, 
that I might surrender my existence without dis- 
grace and without compunction. 

But you are not called to do this. The profane 
may sneer and the impious scoff; but, after all, 

THERE IS A GOD MAN IS ACCOUNTABLE MAN IS 

IMMORTAL ; and the knowledge of this stamps value 
on existence, and renders human action grand and 
awful. These truths announced, this world rises 
in importance. Its transitory scenes assume a 
more fearful aspect and awaken a more solemn in- 
terest. No portion of existence claims such re- 
gard or involves such hazard : for it is here, upon 
this little ball, and during this momentary life, that 



92 INCENTIVES TO VIRTUOUS EFFORT. 

eternity is staked ; that hell is merited, or heaven 
won. 

This is not conjectural, nor is it merely proba- 
ble, but certain — infallibly certain. A revelation 
proceeding from God, sealed by a thousand martyr- 
doms ; confirmed by a thuusand prophecies ; de« 
; monstrated by a thousand miracles, has put human 
speculation at rest for ever, and settled, impera- 
tively setded, the question of man's eternal destiny. 
Yes, you are now, young gentlemen, forming your 
characters and pronouncing your doom for a dura- 
tion that has no njeasure, because it has no end ! 

The tenure of your being, the hazards of this 
state of trial, are as incompatible with indolf^nce and 
ease as with prodigality and pleasure, lou were 
not made to repose on a bed of sloth. You were 
not sent into the world to loiinge and loiter, but to 
act and to suffer. You are called to brave the 
stoim and struggle against the tempest, as you press 
forward with never-fainting a«d never-failing steps 
in the path of duty : a path which, you are told be- 
forehand, leads not the downward course, but cross- 
es rugged and lofty mountains : mountains which 
the patriarchs, and prophets, and righteous men have 
crossed before you, the impress of whose feet is 
left upon the flinty road they trod, and whose ac- 
clivities are smoothed as well as stained by the 
blood and tears they shed as they passed over them. 
Beyond the.-e mountains lies the heaven that ter- 
minated their sufferings and crowned their joys. 
There is Abraham ; there is Moses ; there is Paul ; 
together with all those sainted spirits which in sue* 



DEGRADATION OF THE VICIOUS. 93 

cessive ages have adorned, preserved, and blessed 
the earth. 

Having chosen those men to be your future com- 
panions ; having dared to encounter the trials they 
encountered ; having commenced the journey they 
have completed, and pressing forward towards the 
heaven they so triumphantly have entered, you will 
not, I trust, fear the sinner's frowns nor feel his 
tauntings. 

He will talk to you, indeed, of a laxer discipline ; 
of a less rigorous course, and of more immediate as 
well as of more licentious pleasures. You will tell 
him, in reply. That you have been nurtured in the 
school of virtue ; that you have been baptized in the 
name of Christ ; and, as becomes his followers, are 
bent on immortality^ a pursuit incompatible alike 
with inglorious ease and brutal pleasure. 

He will smile — he will sneer — perhaps attempt 
to pity you for naming Christ and thinking of im- 
mortality. And again he will talk of ease, of 
pleasure, of freedom from hope and fear, as he 
holds forth to you the skeptic's cup, mingled with 
more than Circean poison, which degrades the 
wretch who drinks of it in his own estimation from 
the standing of a man, and sends him, transformed 
into a mere animal, to root and wallow with the 
swine ; to caper and grin with the monkey ; to 
crouch and growl w^ith the tiger ; to mew and purr 
with the kitten, or fawn and yelp with the spaniel, 
during a momentary degraded life, and then con- 
signs hirn to putrefy and rot, together with all this 
fraternity of brutes, in the kennel — their common 
sepulchre. 



94 CHRISTIAN RESOLUTIONS. 

You will rep]y to him again as you have already 
replied to him ; and oh ! with what triumphant su- 
periority, in point of dignity and destination, will 
.you reply to him : " That you have been nurtured 
in the school of virtue ; that you have been baptized 
in the name of Christ ; and that, as becomes his fol- 
lowers, you are bent on immortality,''^ You will tell 
him that his hopes may be correspondent to his life ; 
that to him such pursuits, and pleasures, and pros- 
pects may be in character, but that they are not so 
to you : that you have no ambition to live brutes, 
barely that you may have the boasted privilege of 
dying so ; that you claim no kindred to, that you 
aspire to no affiance with the bristled offspring of 
the sty, nor wish to be indoctrinated in that sub« 
lime philosophy which is to teach you to believe that 
the race of men were made to manure the soil, and 
that they only go at death to increase the general 
aggregate of carcasses and carrion ! In one word, 
you will tell him that you are Christians ; and 
that, as such, the all-perfect God, the rewarder and 
the reward of virtue, calls you to a different course, 
and has promised you a different destiny. Sinners 
indeed you are, and as such, by the law of nature, 
stand condemned : not so by the law of giace, 
which provides, through the merits of a Saviour, for 
your recovery of the chara< ter and restoration to 
the felicity of those who have never sinned. 

And now, young gentleman, we separate. In a 
few years, perhaps — within a century at most — we 
shall all meet again. Where 1 Beyond the grave, 
and on the borders of ete^rnity. Life is only a narrow 



PARTING EXHORTATION. 95 

taihmus ; an isthmus already washed and wasted by 
the flow of time. The earth on which we tread is 
undermined or undermining : near the margin — per- 
haps upon the very brink — we tremblo. No matter 
though it be so. It is not the length, but the man- 
ner in which the journey is performed, that secures 
the plaudit. While it lasts, therefore, and till the 
earth sinks under us, we will acquit ourselves like 
men, and contend valiantly for the cities of our 
brethren and the honour of our God. 

You will live and act when he who now address- 
es you will neither be known nor numbered among 
the living. Soon the cold clod will press upon this 
bosom : this voice, silent in death, v/ill no longer 
warn the sinner nor sooth the sufferer ; nor will 
this arm, stiffened and nerveless in the grave, ever 
again be raised to wipe away the tears of orphanage 
or to distribute the alms of charity. To you we 
commend these objects — anxious for those who will 
live after us. With you, beloved pupils, we leave 
this memorial ; and we charge you, by the love of 
virtue, by the hope of immortality, to see that 
the poor has bread, the mourner consolation, the 
friendless friends, the oppressed advocates, the Sa- 
viour of sinners disciples, and the God of heaven 
Worshippers, so long as you remain on earth. And 
should we, your instructers — ah triumphant hope ! — 
be so happy as to enter those mansions which grace 
has prepared for the redeemed of all nations, see 
you that the spirits of the dying, as they ascend to 
join us, bring with them tidings of your faith, and 
patience, and labours of lov€. Let us hear by ev- 



96 REPORT OF GOOD DEEDS IN HEAVEN. 

ery sainted messenger, by every returning angel, of 
something you have done, or are doing, or are pro- 
jecting to do for Christ — for virtue — for the happi- 
ness and honour of the world you live in. Let it 
be told in heaven that another Howard, or Sharp, or 
Brainard, or Schwartz has appeared on the earth to 
enlighten human ignorance ; to mitigate human suf- 
fering, and to exemplify and perpetuate the knowl- 
edge and the love of our Lord and Saviour. God 
Almighty grant that our hopes may not be disap- 
pointed, and to his name shall be the glorj. 



COURSE OF NATDRE. 97 



VI. 



DELIVERED JULY 22, 1812. 

[The Moral, no less than the Physical World, subject to con- 
vulsions and changes. — The present an age of Political Rev- 
olutions.— Our Country involved in the contentions of Na- 
tions. — Importance of the Era in which we live. — The hopes 
of Society in the rising Generation. — Knowledge is Power.— 
The Savage and the civilized Man compared. — The dommion 
of Mind, as exhibited in the general and statesman — in the 
example of ancient Athens. — Encouragements to Perseve- 
rance in the pursuit of intellectual Superiority.— Examples 
of Homer and Demosthenes. — Power beneficent only when 
associated with Goodness. — Human Endowments should be 
consecrated to Religious and Moral ends.— Nature of Civil 
Government, and duty of Obedience to it. — Exhortation to 
defend the free Institutions of our Country. — Whatever Trials 
befall the Christian here, his Reward is sure hereafter.] 

Young gentlemen, the admission of a class to 
collegiate honours always excites solicitude ; partic- 
ularly so at seasons of doubtful and momentous in- 
cident. The course of nature itself is not uniform. 
At intervals, and after a time of tranquillity, a sea- 
son of disaster and convulsion ensues. The bal- 
ance of the elements seems to be destroyed ; rivers 
change their beds ; seas their basins ; mountains 
are removed ; valleys are filled up, and the solid 
world is shaken. Again the balance of the elements 
is restored ; the conflict subsides ; the regions of 
matter are tranquillized ; and order in a new form 
takes place. 

The course of the physical, in these respects, is 
emblematical of the course of the intellectual and 
moral world ; at least of that part of it with which 



98 INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL WORLD. 

we are conversant. In civil society, after a season 
of tranquillity, a season of convulsion usually, per- 
haps necessarily, ensues. Suddenly, institutions are 
changed ; the opinions of men are changed ; their 
habits and manners are changed. Attempts of bold 
and daring enterprise are hazarded ; and they suc- 
ceed. More is undertaken — more is accomplish- 
ed in a few years, and by a single set of actors, than 
was accomplished, or could have been accomplish- 
ed by preceding generations, and during success- 
ive ages. Again tranquillity ensues ; things settle 
down in a new fonn, and society enjoys the bless- 
ings which have been conferred, or suffers the in- 
juries which have been inflicted by the change. 

It is our lot to live at a time peciiliarly disastrous. 
Change has followed change in continuity. The 
course of things has been as unaccountable as 
alarming. Foresight has proved blind ; calculation 
has been baffled ; and sages and statesmen have 
gazed in consternation at a series of events so im- 
probable in their nature, so rapid in their succession, 
as to appear in retrospect more like the illusions of 
fancy than the actual phenomena of real life. Half 
the civilized world has suddenly been revolutionized. 
Institutions the most solid in their materials, as well 
as the most firm in their contexture, have been 
swept away. Fabrics which human skill had been 
fur ages rearing up and consolidating, have been 
demolished ; and from their ruins, as from another 
chaos, a new order of things has arisen. 

Hitherto we have contemplated these changes as 
spectators merely. Awed indeed we have been by 



POLITICAL REVOLtTTIONS, 99 

their magnitude, amazed at their celerity. The 
scene of suffering which has been disclosed has in- 
terested our feelings : we have sympathized with 
the sufferers. We have sighed for the restoration 
of peace, and the return of repose to the world. 
We have done this, however, rather out of charity 
to others than apprehension for ourselves. The ark 
of our safety, we imagined, was anchored too firmly, 
and in a harbour too remote to be driven from its 
moorings by any rude blast or swelling surge. The 
scene of devastation has, however, been perpetually 
extending ; wider and wider the destructive vortex 
has spread itself; realm after realm has been drag- 
ged into its rapid and hitherto fatal whirl. The cur- 
rent at length has reached us ; our bark begins to 
be carried forward by the stream, whether to be 
moored a^^ain in satiety, or to be wrecked and lost 
for ever, God only knows. Our character, perhaps 
our existence as a nation, is staked upon the issue 
of that contest in which we are about engaging. 
We shall not be hereafter what heretofore we have 
been. Either we shall rise united under that heavy 
pressure which will soon be felt, or we shall sink 
beneath it, divided, humbled, and disgraced. War 
is an experiment on our form of government which 
has not yet been tried. A momentous experiment, 
involving alternatives for which no human being can 
be responsible, and to the issue of which wise men 
will look forward not without awe and trembling. 
Perhaps — but I will not agitate this question, nor 
indulge that anxious train of thought which occu- 
pies my mind and presses on my heart. 



100 THE RISING GENERATION. 

At such a time, every new actor that steps upon 
the stage is an object of more than ordinary inter- 
est : for at such a time the facihties of doing either 
good or evil are increased. Life itself becomes 
of additional importance ; it becomes more rich in 
incident ; and, if years were measured by political 
events, it would becoaie longer in duration. 

Attached to the institutions of our country, and 
sensible that its dearest interests will soon be com- 
mitted to those who will survive us, we feel anxious 
concerning the part which they hereafter are to act. 
Hence, as we welcome them into life, we charge 
them to become the guardians of the public weal ; 
to preserve what is good, to remedy what is defect- 
ive, and remove what is evil from our civil, our lit- 
erary, and our religious institutions. 

It is not to the risen, but to the rising generation 
that we look for great and beneficial changes. The 
maturity of manhood is too inflexible to admit of 
being recast in a new and a nobler mould. But if 
the whole of that group of beings denominated the 
rising generation be important, how important, then, 
must be that portion of this group which, in distinc- 
tion from the residue, has been privileged by a pub- 
lic and liberal education. Every post of duty is in- 
deed a post of honour. We revere industry and 
integrity ; and we ought to revere them at the plough 
and in the workshop. Still, however, when these 
virtues are combined with polished manners and lib- 
eral science, they shine with brighter lustre and 
command profounder reverence. No determinate 
number of perfectly untutored beings, so far as hu- 



POWER CONFERRED BY EDUCATION. 101 

man society is concerned, can be put in competition 
with a youth of splendid and cultivated talents. 
The reason is obvious. The ability of such a youth 
to exalt or to depress, to reclaim or to corrupt com- 
munity, is greater, and will be of longer continuance 
than that of any determinate number of his illiterate 
contemporaries. The latter, limited in their sphere 
of action to the place where they reside and to the 
time in which they live, soon sink into the grave, 
when, ordinarily, their deeds of virtue or of villany 
are forgotten. The former acts in a higher style 
and on a broader scale. Nations feel the influence 
of his genius while living, nor does death itself take 
aught from the effect of his precepts or example. 

Not that in point of physical strength, youth of 
erudition acquire any superiority over the rudest 
children of nature. The contrary is the fact. In 
muscular exertion, in acts of agility, in the chase, 
at the tournament, and the caestus, you will be their 
inferiors. Not so in point of moral influence. 
Education qualifies for doing either greater good or 
greater evil. It is this, young gentlemen, that gives 
to your existence so much importance, and excites 
in your behalf so deep an interest. 

It is an old proverb. That wealth is power. The 
same may be said, and more emphatically, with re- 
spect to knowledge. Look into the world, and con- 
template the native savage, surrounded by forests, 
and in jeopardy from beasts of prey, binding his 
bark sandals to his feet, and flying from the tiger, or 
vainly attempting to pierce the fawn with his point- 
less arrow. How wild and awful the state of na- 
12 



102 SAVAG^E AND CIVILIZED MAN. 

ture ! How pitiable and impotent this state of man ! 
Contemplate now the citizen. Walled cities are at 
once his accommodation and defence. By him the 
forest has been felled, the acclivities of the mount- 
aitis depressed, the deep morass filled up : by him 
ferocious animals have been destroyed, the noxious 
productions of the earth have been subdued, and 
monuments of art erected. Amazing change ! All 
surrounding nature bespeaks his sovereignty and 
contributes to his comfort. Whence this prodigious 
difference in condition ? What circumstance has 
contributed so much to exalt one portion of the spe- 
cies ? By what magic has a being of so little phys- 
ical strength been enabled to acquire a dominion so 
vast, and establish a government so absolute 1 The 
answer is manifest. By knowledge he has done 
this. 

Man possesses less muscle than many, but more 
intelligence than any other terrestrial inhabitant. 
He alone has skill to analyze and combine anew the 
rude materials which surround him ; to dig from the 
mine its precious metals, and mould from the ores 
his weapons of conquest and defence. Those me- 
chanical powers which he has discovered and learn- 
ed to apply, remedy the effects of his natural imbe- 
cility. Thus enlightened by science and fortified by 
art, he is enabled to control and tame the most fero- 
cious animals, to raise and remove the heaviest 
masses, and to direct to the accomplishment of his 
purposes the very elements of nature itself. 

As kno-wledge extends the dominion of man ovet 
matter, so also does it over mind. What an im- 



THE GENERAL Al^D Sf AtiESMAN. 103 

tnense advantage does he possess who not only un- 
derstands the machinery of language, but also the 
influence of motive : who comprehends the econ- 
omy of the passions ; to whom the principles of ac- 
tion are famiUar, and the avenues of the heart open : 
who knows hew to remove prejudice, to conciliate \ 
affection, and to excite attention : who can at pleas- | 
ure sooth or rouse, inflame or allay, restrain or hurry 
on to action : what an immense advantage does 
such a man possess over him who can only stam- 
mer out his ill-timed, ill-digested, and incoherent 
sentiments in a manner so rude and repulsive as to 
disparage the cause he advocates, and defeat the 
attainment of the object for which he has lent his 
talents. 

Nor less the advantage of science in every other 
department of life. It is Minerva who gathers even 
for Mars his laurel, and wins for Bellona her fields*^ ^ 
How august a spectacle of power does an intelligent \ 
and intrepid general exhibit at the head of a numer- 
ous and well-appointed army, himself the bond of 
union and the centre of influence ; wielding this tre- 
mendous force, and directing it when to act and 
where to strike, with as much certainty and as ter- 
rible eflTect as if the whole were animated by a single 
soul. 

A spectacle scarcely less august is exhibited by 
the sagacious statesman, who, from the retirement 
of his closet, diffuses a secret influence, tincturing 
the opinions of courtiers, guiding the decision of 
princes, embroiling or reconciling diflTerent and dis- 
tant nations, and producing through a thousand iti- 



t 



104 EXAMPLE OF ATHENS. 

termediate agents, and in regions, perhaps, which 
he has never seen, the most surprising changes, the 
most improbable events. 

It was science, displayed in her literature and her 
arts, that made Athens what she was and still is — 
[ the admiration of the world. The record of her 
\ triumphs and of her overthrow has been preserved 
in the midst of the unwritten ruins of a thousand 
barbarous states. Ages of succeeding darkness 
have not obscured her glory ; the ravages of time 
have not obliterated her monuments. The history 
of Athens is still read, and it is dear : dear, too, are 
the memorials of her greatness, and dear is the spot 
where Athens stood. 

By a tincture only of science, Russia, amid her 
snow-covered forests, has recently assumed a loftier 
i attitude, and taken a higher stand among the nations. 
\ Indeed, knowledge furnishes the facilities and the 
I instruments of operatmg as certainly, as efficacious- 
i ly, and more extensively upon the mind than the 
I mechanical powers do upon matter. And the man 
of erudition, aided by these facilities, surpasses in 
intellectual potency — in a capacity of action and of 
influence, the unlettered boor, as much as the scien- 
tific artificer, aided by machinery, surpasses the wild 
man of the woods, who can only apply to the im- 
pediments in his path the mere strength of his native 
muscles. 

j AfCtiUiicdes affirmed that he could lift the earth 

iould be but find a place to rest his lever on. What 

/Archimedes found not in the regions of matter, 

\ some intellectual geometrician may yet find in the 



ADVANTAGES OF PERSEVERANCE. 103 

regions of mind ; and, finding, exhibit the amazing 
spectacle of a single individual, but a f^AV years old 
and a few feet high, concentrating the influence, 
swaying the opinions, and wielding in his hand the 
nations of the world. 

Towards the attainment of mental superiority, 
during your collegiate course you have made some 
advance. Other and still greater advances remain 
hereafter to be made. You may now be youth of 
promise ; but you must long and diligently trim the 
midnight lamp before you will arrive to the stature 
of intellectual manhood. 

Preparing for professional duties ; shortly to min- 
gle among the busy actors on yonder interesting the- 
atre ; destined to take sides on those questions which 
now agitate or which will hereafter agitate com- 
munity, and on the decision of which the happiness 
or the misery of unborn millions hangs suspended ; 
can any sacrifices be deemed great, or any discipline 
severe, which will enable you hereafter to act a more 
conspicuous part, or exert a more controlling in- 
fluence ? 

Perseverantia vincit omnia. Do you not remem- 
ber what obstacles obstructed Homer's path to glory ? 
The Grecian orator, too, had to struggle against the 
influence of constitution. By perseverance, how- 
ever, he surmounted the most discouraging impedi- 
ments, and supplied by art the defects of nature. 
His lungs he expanded by climbing the steep and 
rugged mountains ; by speaking with pebbles in his ; 
mouth he corrected his stammering ; and his voice | 
he strengthened by haranguing on the surge- beaten ^ 



106 POWER WITHOUT GOODNESS 

shore to the winds and the waves. Let his suc- 
cessful efforts encourage yours ; let no ordinary ob- 
stacles dishearten you ; let no ordinary attainments 
satisfy you. Remember always, as we have said, 
that knowledge is power : but remember also, that 
no degree of power — no, not even power almighty, 
is in itself an object of complacency. We tremble 
before the Deity when we hear him utter his voice 
in thunder ; when we behold him riding on the 
storm, and mark his terrific course amid the tem- 
pest. But it is his goodness that endears him to 
us. We love to contemplate him in the robe of 
mercy — to trace his footsteps when relieving misery 
or communicating happiness. As goodness is es- 
sential to the glory of God, so it is to the glory of 
his creatures. In him wisdom, truth, and justice are 
combined with power. And, because they are so, 
the interests of the universe are secure. But, with- 
out these essential attributes, almighty power would 
only be an instrument of evil, and its possessor an 
object of detestation. 

Nor less truly an object of detestation is a finite 
being possessing power apart from goodness. Ev- 
ery unprincipled youth, therefore, that goes forth 
crowned from our seats of science, is, and ought to 
be viewed as an assassin doubly armed and let 
loose upon the world. No matter whether he min- 
gles poison as a druggist, utters falsehood as an ad- 
vocate, preaches heresy as a minister, practises 
treachery as a statesman, or sheds blood as a sol- 
dier ; everywhere alike, he will strengthen the hands 
of sinners, increase the amount of guilt, and add to 



RELIGIOUS MOTIVES. 107 

the mass of misery. Lucifer may originally have 
been as sagacious and as potent as Gabriel ; and, 
had his submission been as profound and his mo- 
rahty as blameless, he might still have enjoyed a 
fame as fair and as deathless. Oh ! that the failure 
and the fall of angels were duly considered and at- 
tended to by men. ^w-^^ 

It is the fear of God and the faith of Jesus only 
that can consecrate your talents — consecrate your 
wifluence, and make you to your friends, to your 
Oiountry, and to the universe, instruments of good. 
Far be it from me to pronounce any benediction on 
endowments not devoted to the Almighty. There 
may be cunning, there may be temerity ; but great- 
ness and glory there cannot be where religion is 
rfot. The sinner's splendour is as transient and as 
ominous as the meteor's glare. It is only the path 
of the righteous which, like the morning light, bright- 
ens continually to the perfect day. 

You will enter on hfe at a critical conjuncture. 
Your country stands in need of all the talent and 
all the influence you can carry with you to her assis- 
tance. May I not hope, that, when you shall be num- 
bered among her patriots and statesmen, your pru- 
dence will be as exemplary as your zeal ? Though 
jrou should differ in political opinions, be one in af- 
fection, one in the pursuit of glory, and one in the 
hve of ycur country. Do nothing, say nothing, 
/o produce unnecessary rigour on the one part, or 
•awl ess resistance on the other. Beware how you 
contribute to awaken the whirlwiiid of passion, or 
CO invite to this sacred land the rt^^^i of anarchy. . 



t08 TRUTH AND MODERATIO^. 

Whatever irritations may be felt, whatever ques- 
tions may be agitated, and however you yourselves 
may be divided, be it your part to calm, to sooth, 
to allay, to check the deed of violence ; to charm 
down the spirit of party ; to strengthen the bonds of 
social intercourse ; and to prove by your own ami- 
able deportment — by your own affectionate inter- 
course, that it is possible for brethren to differ and 
be brethren still. Differ indeed you may, and avow 
that difference. Freedom of speech is your birth- 
right. The deed which conveys it was written in 
the blood of your fathers ; it was sealed beside their 
sepulchres, and let no man take it from you. But 
remember that the deed which conveys, defines also, 
and limits this freedom. And remember, too, that 
the line which divides between liberty and licens- 
tiousness is but a line, and that it is easily trans- 
gressed. The assassin's dagger is not more fatal 
to the peace of community than the liar's tongue. 
Nor does the sacred charter of the freeman's privi- 
leges furnish to the one, any more than to the other, 
an asylum. 

It is your happiness to live under a government 
of laws. Nor, were it demonstrated that those laws 
were impolitic, or even oppressive, would it justify 
resistance. There is a redeeming principle in the 
Constitution itself. That instrument provides a le- 
gitimate remedy for grievances ; and, unless on 
great emergencies, the only rightful one. Under a 
compact Uke ours, the majority must govern ; the 
minority must submit, and they ought to submit; 
not by constraint merely, but for cooscience' sake* 



TRUE PATRIOTISM. 109 

The powers that be are ordained of God ; and, while 
they execute the purpose for which they were or- 
dained, to resist them is to resist the ordinance of 
God. 

You remember that Jesus Christ paid tribute 
even unto Csesar, than whom there has not Uved a 
more execrable tyrant. You remember, too, that , / 
his immediate followers, as became the disciples of / 
such a master, everywhere bowed to the supremacy I 
of the Roman laws. It is a fact that will for ever j 
redound to the honour of the Christian church and / 
of its divine founder, that its members, though every- / 
where oppressed and persecuted for three^ success-/ 
ive centuries, were nowhere implicated in those! 
commotions which agitated the provinces, nor were' 
they even accessory to those treasons which, during 
that period, so often stained the capital with blood. 

In the worst of times, and however you may dif- 
fer with respect to men and measures, still cling to 
the Constitution; cling to the integrity of 
THE UNION ; cling to the institutions of your country. 
These, under God, are your political ark of safety ; 
the ark that contains the cradle of liberty in which 
you were rocked ; that preserves the vase of Chris- 
tianity in which you were baptized ; and that defends 
the sacred urn where the ashes of your patriot fa- 
thers moulder. Cling, therefore, to this ark, and de- 
fend it while a drop of blood is propelled from your 
heart, or a shred of muscle quivers on your bones. 
Triumph as the friends of liberty, of order, of reli- 
gion, or fall as martyrs. 

I now bid you adieu. What scenes await you* 



110 ANTICIPATION OF HEAVEN. 

your friends, and your beloved country, I know 
not ; and you know not. But this we know, that 
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. And, because 
He reigneth, though the sea roar, and the waves 
thereof be Ufted up. Mount Zion will not be re- 
moved. 

This world is the region of sin ; and for the rea- 
son that it is the region of sin, it is also the region 
of disaster. But though here the tumult of batde 
rage, and the garments of innocence be rolled in 
blood, yonder in heaven is a secure abode. There 
lay up your treasure, thither direct your hopes. 
This done, face danger, and defy the menaces of 
death. Unsuccessful indeed you may be. Your 
fame may be blasted, your property may be plun- 
dered, and your bodies doomed to exile or to exe- 
cution ; but your souls, as they mount from the 
stake or from the scaffold, looking down from the 
scene of utter desolation, may exclaim in triumph, 
" Our eternal interests are secure ; amid this wreck 
we have lost nothing." May Almighty God pre- 
serve you from evil, or enable you to meet it as tri- 
umphantly as the saints met martyrdom, and to bis 
name shall be the glory. 



LOVE OF DISTINCTION. Ill 

VII. 

DELIVERED JULY 28, 1813. 

(Love of Distinction. — Honour and Religion, though distinct, 
are allied to each other. — Modern definition of the Law of 
Honour. — Fallacies of this Definition exposed. — A sense of 
Honour in different degrees operative on all Minds except the 
most debased — The offices of this Feeling and of Conscience 
contrasted. — Purpose for which the Sense of Honour was im- 
planted in the human breast. — its Perversion an abuse. — Dig- 
nity of Man, and the lofty distinction conferred on him by his 
Maker.— His Fall and Recovery.— His Rank, Capacities^ Pa- 
rentage, and Destination, all call upon him to persevere in a 
steady Course of honourable Action, in his Amusements, his 
Pleasures, and his Occupations. — Dignity of the good Man in 
his last moments. — All false and deceptive appearances will 
be exposed in a future state ; and those only who are truly 
and sincerely good will be accounted worthy of acceptance 
and honour.] 

Young gentlemen, your term of pupilage is al- 
most closed. The last scene is acting in which you 
will take a part on the collegiate theatre. Testimo- 
nials of approbation have been delivered, badges of 
distinction conferred. The tokens of respect from 
your Alma JMater, with which you will return to 
your friends and your home, presuppose attainments 
of no mean value, and are calculated to inspire you 
with lofty ideas of personal consequence. Man 
loves distinction, and he ought to love it. That 
God had originally created him but little lower than 
the angels, and crowned him with majesty and hon. 
our,^ was among the considerations that touched the 
heart of David with gratitude, and filled his lips 
with praise. 



112 HONOUR AND RELIGION. 

Let H be remembered, however, that the majesty 
and honour with which man was oiiginally crowned, 
differ essentially from that spurious majesty, that 
affectation of honour, in which he too often now ap- 
pears. And let it also be remembered, that vice it- 
self is never so dangerous as when it appears in the 
habiliments of virtue. In nothing is the truth of 
these positions more manifest than in that self-com- 
placency with which little men practise those guilty 
meannesses which fashion sanctions and folly cele- 
brates. 

Honour and religion are indeed distinct; but, 
though distinct, they are allied ; and there can be 
no high attainments in the one without correspond- 
ing attainments in the other. There is nothing, for 
instance, estimable or elevating in a mere act of suf- 
fering ; in the dislocation of joints, or even in the con- 
suming of the body by fire. But there is a majesty 
that strikes, a grandeur that overwhelms in the con- 
stancy of the martyr who endures both without a 
murmur for God's and for righteousness' sake. 

We do often, indeed, render honour to whom it 
is not due ; but we do this beca.use we are govern- 
ed, and are obliged to be governed, in our appraise- 
ment of merit by external appearances. When, 
however, any action is pronounced honourable, some 
internal motive is supposed to have induced to its 
performance, which, if it had truly induced to its per- 
formance, would have rendered such action in reality 
what it is now, perhaps, in appearance only. This 
is a delicate point, and one on which you are liable 
to be misguided. I have therefore chosea it for 
discussion. 



FASHION /^BLE LAW OF HONOUR. 113 

The law of honour has been defined to be a ' \ 
tystem of rules, constructed by people of fashion^ and I 
calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one an-- .^f 
other ; and for no other purpose, ^ 

To this definition two objections may be made. 
It does not discriminate between the object of this 
law and that of other laws ; and it hmits to people 
of fashion a law which is as extensive as the human 
race. 

Is it peculiar to the law of honour to facilitate in- 
tercourse among those who are subject to it ? Does 
not the civil law also aim at this ? And is not this 
an object at which the divine law aims, and which 
it moreover eflfectually accomplishes ? Again : is the 
law of honour recognised by fashionable people only? 
Or who are meant by fashionable people ? Those 
so denominated in one country would be denomina- 
ted the reverse in another. And, even in the same 
country, the term comprehends no precise and def- 
inite portion of community. The highest are fash- 
ionable only by comparison : the intermediate ranks, 
by a like comparison, are fashionable. The series 
descends from grade to grade, and terminates only 
with that ignoble herd, in comparison with whom there 
are none more ignoble. Who, then, are those fash- 
ionable people by whom the law of honour has been 
constructed ] Are they those only who occupy the 
first rank ? The terms of this law are familiar to, 
and its sanctions are acknowledged by people of ev- 
ery description. Neither husbandmen nor mechan- 
ics are destitute of rules for facilitating intercourse ; 
nor among them can such rules be violated without 



114 A SENSE OF HONOUR INHERENT. 

dishonour. Remaining traces of the influence of 
this law are sometimes found among ruffians and 
banditti : hence we hear, and the terms are not with- 
out significancy, of honour among thieves. 
; The fact is, I beheve, that the law of honour is 
common to man, because the sense of honour on 
I which it is founded is common : a law which had 
I existence previous to any association of fa^hionable 
{ people, and would have continued to exist though no 
* such association had ever taken place. 

By adverting to such a system of rules as the 
definition under discussion supposes, an individual 
might become acquainted with the legalized eti- 
quette of fashionable lite. By experience he might 
farther learn, that the observance of certain rules 
facilitated intercourse ; but nature alone could teach 
him understandingly to say, this action is honoura- 
ble, that dirshonourable ; because nature alone could 
give him that inward feeling from which the very 
idea of honour is derived. 

This inward feeling or sense of honour is allied 
to, if it be not a constituent part of, the moral sense. 
It exists, perhaps originally, in different degrees in 
different individuals. Its sensibility may be in- 
creased by culture or diminished by neglect. Its 
influence may be blended with other influences ; its^ 
decisions may be biased by custom, by education, 
by prevalent modes of thinking and acting ; it maj 
discover itself in different v/ays among different in* 
dividuals and in different classes of community ; bu^ 
among all who have not ceased to be men and be 



MORAL DESIGN OF THIS FEELING. 115 

eome brutes, some indications of its existence, some 
iraces of its influence remain. 

It is by this sense of honour that we ascertain what 
pleasures, what pursuits, and what demeanour accord 
with our nature and rank. Its province is to distin- 
guish between dignity and meanness, as that of the 
moral is to decide between innocence and guilty ; 
and its penalty is shame, as that of the moral sense 
is remorse. It would exist if there were no fashion- 
able society, nor even society of any sort. The 
wanderer in his solitude, and communing only with 
his heart, would recognise its influence, and, guided 
by inward feeling, discriminate between actions, high / 
and low, dignified and mean. And, without this/ 
feeling, he could not, even in society, make such 
discrimination. Experience would teach to distin- 
guish what was useful from what was injurious ; 
conscience to distinguish what was virtuous from 
what was vicious ; but to distinguish what was hon- 
ourable from what was dishonourable, could only be - 
taught by a sense of honour. 

This ennobling principle was implanted to pre- 
vent the degradation of the species, and to secure 
on the part of man a demeanour suited to his nature 
and station, who, being the offspring of God, once 
wore a crown of righteousness, and was invested 
with regal honours. This high purpose, it is ad- 
mitted, in the present state of things, is very imper- 
fectly attained. The apostacy has diffused its. mor- 
tal taint through the entire nature of man, and 
neither honour nor conscience any longer performs 
with due effect its sacred office. And yet, degra- 



116 PERVERSION OF THE SENSE OF HONOUR. 

ded as human nature is, it would be still more de« 
graded — vice would appear in new and more deba- 
sing forms if all sense of honour were suspended. 
Like native modesty against lust, honour, so far as 
its influence goes, is a barrier in the heart against 
meanness. Like all those moral tendencies usually 
comprehended under the idea of conscience, its in- 
fluence is feeble, and may be counteracted; its de- 
cisions are erring, and may be swayed by passion 
or prejudice ; and its sensibility, always defective, 
may, by criminal indulgence, be greatly blunted, if 
not utterly destroyed. 

Envy, malice, pride, and lust are ever struggling 
for dominion in the breast of man. And, where 
grace is not concerned, they have dominion. To 
the prevalence and potency of these abominable 
passions it is owing that, in fashionable circles, 
so many virtues are disregarded ; so many vices 
are practised, although no sanction is afforded to 
profligacy by honour or its laws ; the unbiased de- 
cisions of which are for ever in favour of whatever 
is dignified and ennobling, as those of conscience 
are in favour of whatever is virtuous and holy ; and 
it is not till their joint influence has been resisted — 
has been stifled and overcome, that the degraded 
debauchee can, without shame and without com- 
punction, enjoy his degradation. 

The result to which this inquiry would conduct 

I us, but which we have not now time to pursue, may 

I be thus summed up. The law of honour has its 

K| foundation in an original sense of honour : this sense 

f\ is common to all men ; it is capable of being either 



FASHIONABLE MAN OF HONOUR. 117 

improved or corrupted : its province is to distinguish ^ 
between dignity and meanness ; and its final design 
is the elevation of the human race. j 

I am aware, young gentlemen, that in these degen- 
erate times terms of honour are insensibly changing 
their significance, and becoming terms of opprobri- 
um. And it is fit that it should be so. Since the 
contemptible vapouring of principals and seconds in 
their humiliating rencounters are conveyed exclu- 
sively through the medium of these once reputable 
and sacred terms, it is befitting that the terms them- 
selves should lose their sacredness ; and that the 
expression, " a man of honour," should be under- 
stood to mean, what, in fact, in the modern use of it^ 
it does often mean, an empty, arrogant, and super- 
cilious coxcomb. 

But, because words are misused, do not suppose 
that they never were significant, or that the things 
to which they were once rightfully applied no long- 
er have existence. To you, not as people of fash' 
ion, but as intellectual, moral beings, belong the 
sense and the law of honour. 

Man is ennobled by his descent, by his faculties, 
and by his destination. A vast chasm intervenes 
between him and the highest link in the chain of 
mere animal existence. His port, his atfitude, the 
texture of his frame, the grace and expression of his 
countenance, bespeak a heavenly parentage, an ori- \ 
gin divine. The reptile creeps, the brute bendsf 
downward to the earth. Man walks erect ; his el*^ 
evated brow meets the sunbeam as it falls by day jr 



I 



118 NOBLENESS OF MAN'S NATURE. 

and by night, the immeasurable firmament presents 
its resplendent garniture to his heaven-directed eye. 

^i "Two of far nobler shape, erect and tali, 

Godlike erect, with native honour clad, 
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all." 

No wonder that the primeval state of man exci- 
ted in the poet such ideas. The grandeur of his 
body strikes not, however, so forcibly as the gran- 
deur of his mind. How august a spectacle is a be- 
ing so limited in his corporeal dimensions, and yet 
so vast in his intellectual resources. Reason, mem- 
ory, fancy, and imagination are eminently his : no 
space Umits his researches, no time bounds his ex- 
cursive sallies ; in a certain sense, he pervades the 
past, the present, and the future. His soul, inde- 
structible in its nature, and capable of endless im- 
provement, is but the miniature of what it shall 
hereafter be. Immortality — immortal progression ! 
what more could Adam covet ! what more can Ga- 
briel boast of! 

Like a palace for its monarch, this world was 
reared .up that it might become the residence of 
man. Already were the land and water divided ; 
already was the earth covered with herbage, and the 
fruit-tree with fruit ; already had the stars been set to 
rule the night, and the sun to rule the day, when man, 
the last and the noblest of terrestrial beings, was, from 
his native dust, ushered into life. Fresh in the robe 
of innocence, and bearing on his heart his Maker's 
image, he was solemnly inducted into the legal of- 
fice, and constituted sovereign of the world. "And 
have donwnion," said the Almighty, addressing him- 



RECOVERY FROM THE APOSTACY. 119 

self to our first parents, " And have dominion over 
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." 
It was on the review of this inauguration that David 
broke forth in that strain of admiration to which we 
have already alluded. '' When I consider thy heav- 
ens, the work of thy fingers ; the moon and the 
stars which thou hast ordained ; what is man that 
thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that 
thou visitest him 1 For thou hast made him a little 
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
glory and honour ; thou madest him to have domin- 
ion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all 
things under his feet." 

What a lofty distinction to belong to such a race — 
to be descended from such a parentage — to be des- 
tined to such a career of progressive and intermi- 
nable glory ! With what profound reverence ought 
you to recognise the Author of your being ! with 
what a burst of filial gratitude ought you to approach 
His throne, who has bestowed on you such a profu- 
sion of honours, and made you the heirs of such 
exuberant felicity ! 

Say not that the loss of primeval honour, the 
change of original destination which the apostacy 
occasioned, has absolved you from claims which 
would otherwise press upon you. The apostacy 
cancels no debt of gratitude, it severs no tie of duty. 
And, were it otherwise, such plea to man, under the 
present dispensation, were unavailable. x\ll that 
was lost by the apostacy of Adam has been recov- 
ered, and recovered with boundless increase, by the 



/. 



H 



120 AMUSEMENTS. 

mediiition of Christ. To be restored to the Divine 

image, ^o be reinstated in the Divine favour, to be 

translated to the heavens, and to be numbered 

among the sons of God — this honour have all His 

saints. 

i "If the surrendry of my honour," said an illus- 

/f' trious captive, " be the condition of my liberty, give 

^ me back my chains and reconduct me to my dun- 

; -^geon. I can brave torture, I can meet death, but I 

„^ cannot do an act that will disgrace one in whose 

veins circulates the blood of a royal ancestry." Oh ! 

that souls in captivity to sin would consecrate this 

^.sentiment, and act with like becoming dignity. 

Let the animal browse, let the reptile grovel, let 
the serpent creep upon his belly and lick the dust ; 
but let not man, heaven- descended, heaven-instruct- 
ed, heaven-redeemed man, degrade himself. 

Your rank, your capacities, your parentage, and 
your destination, alike bind you to a uniform course 
of honourable pursuit, of dignified exertion. In 
your amusements, in your pleasures, in your occupa- 
tions, on your deaths, be sensible of this. 

In your amusements. — Man was made for serious 
occupation, but not for such occupation perpetually. 
As the bow, unstrung, recovers its elasticity, so the 
!| mind acquires fresh vigour from sleep, "kind na- 
ture's sweet restorer." Nor from sleep alone. 
During his wakeful hours, severe pursuits must 
sometimes be suspended ; but suspended only that, 
after a short interval, they may be the more sue* 
cessfully resumed. Such temporary suspension^ 
either of labour or study, implies no waste of time, 
involves no degradation of character* 



PLEASURES. 121 

Newton was still the philosopher when engaged 
in blowing air bubbles ; Socrates still the moralist 
whon joining in the gambols of the Athenian chil- 
dren. How does the gravity of pagan philosophers 
reprove the levity of many a frivolous pretender to 
character in Christendom. Those active, real sages 
trifled but to live : these idle, spurious Christians 
only live to trifle. 

" On all-important time, through every age, 
Though much and warm the wise have urged, the man 
Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour. 
* I've lost a day,' the prince who nobly cried 
Had been an emperor without his crown ; 
He spake as if deputed by mankmd. 
So should all speak ; so reason speaks in all." 

In your pleasures, — The organic pleasures are 
usually overrated by youth, and often by age. And 
yet these pleasures are destitute of dignity. It is 
admitted that man must eat and drink to live. So 
also must the ox and the oyster. The viands of the 
table, in point of elevation, are on a level with the 
fodder of the stall. And the guests that partake of 
the one, so far as the gratification of animal appetite 
is concerned, are no more on an equality than the 
herd that devours the other. Nor can any pre-em- 
inence be claimed for the former, unless it be on the 
ground of a less voracious appetite, or a more tem- 
perate indulgence of it. Not so with the pleasures 
of the eye and of the ear : not so with intellectual 
pleasures. These are dignified as well as exquisite. 
Honour, no less than enjoyment, springs from a par- 
ticipation in them. You have tasted of those pleas- 
ures, but you have not exhausted them. The clas- 
K 



122 SERIOtJS PTJRSTJITS 

sic fountain is still open. The streams of Grecian 
and Roman eloquence and poesy, commingling 
with those no less pure, of more modern origin, still 
flow within your reach. The Academy invites you 
to its groves, the Lyceum to its intellectual banquets. 
These are pleasures that become a scholar, that 
become a man, and that are not incompatible with 
the temperance and sanctitude of a Christian man. 
But the pleasures of the debauchee — from these, 
honour, conscience, every ennobling feeling, no less 
than reason, revolt ; and no man ever for the first 
time seated himself at the gaming-table, joined the 
loud laugh at the horserace, took the inebriating 
cup at the dram-shop, or crossed the polluted thresh- 
old of the brothel, without feeling that his honour 
had received a stain, and that his character suffered 
degradation. 
J In your pursuits, — Useless, or even trivial pur- 
/ suits illy befit the majesty of the human soul. Still 
less do these mischiefs and meannesses befit it, to 
which genius even is sometimes liable. But, though 
genius is sometimes guilty of acts of this sort, such 
acts are by no means indications of genius. There 
is a trickishness, a dexterity in low and little arts, 
that characterizes the monkey rather than the man. 
Shallow minds, like shallow waters, often, perhaps 
usually, babble loudest. 

Being young is no apology for being frivolous. 

f Frivolity suits no state unless it be a state of idiocy. 
True, you are just entering on life. The life, how- 
ever, on which you are entering is life without end. 
\ These are the inceptive steps in the career of iai- 

V 



DEATH. 123 

mortality . Not even death interrupts the continuous 
flow of being. Thus situated, are you willing to 
forfeit your title to character on earth, and make 
God, the just appraiser of honour in heaven, the 
witness of your low actions ? 

The sublime in morals is exhibited only in great 
and useful pursuits ; and he only is an honourable 
man who acts worthy of himself, and worthy of the 
approbation of God, his Maker and his Master ; who 
attends to every duty in its season ; who fills with 
dignity his appropriate station, and directs the whole 
vigour of his mind to the diffusion of knowledge, the 
promotion of virtue, and the accomphshment of 
good ; who can make sacrifices ; who can confront 
danger; who can resist temptation; who can sur-/ 
mount obstacles; and who, trampling ahke on the/ 
world and on the tomb, pursues with undeviating 
step his march to glory. 

In your death, — There is at least one great oc- 
casion in the life of every man ; there is one deci- 
sive act that tries the spirit, and puts the destinies of 
the soul at issue. Neither the skeptic's wavering 
confidence nor the duellist's blind temerity befits this 
dread solemnity. The wretch that thrusts himself 
into his Maker's presence, and the wretch who, be- 
ing called for, dares, without preparation and with- 
out concern, to enter it, deserves alike our reproba- 
tion. The one resembles the maniac who leaps 
the precipice ; the other, the sot who staggers off* it, 
regardless of its height, and unmindful of the shock 
that awaits his fall. From such spectacles of self- 
destruction, the mind turns away with mingled emo- 



124 STEPHEN, ELIJAH, PAUL. 

tions of pity, disgust, and horror. How unlike the 
good man's death. Here there is real majesty. 
Nothing below exceeds, nothing equals it. To see 
a human being crowded to the verge of life, and 
standing on that line that connects and divides eter- 
nity and time, excites a solemn interest. But oh ! 
what words can express the grandeur of the death- 
scene, when the individual about to make the dread 
experiment, sensible of his condition, and with heav- 
en and hell, judgment and eternity full in view, is 
calmt collected, confident ; and, relying on the mer- 
its of his Saviour and the faithfulness of his God, is 
eager to depart ! Perhaps the sainted Stephen here 
occurs to mind : Stephen, with heaven beaming 
from his countenance, as, sinking under the pressure 
of his enemies, he raises his dying eyes to glory, 
and says, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Per- 
haps the Israelitish prophet, as, dropping his conse- 
crated mantle on his pupil, he mounts the whirlwind 
from the banks of Jordan ; or perhaps Saul of Tar- 
sus, exclaiming, in prospect of the fires of martyr- 
dom, " I am ready to be offered up ; I have fought 
the good fight ; I have kept the faith ; and there is 
henceforth laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
which the righteous Lord will dehver unto me ; and 
not to me only, but to all those that love his appear* 
ing." 

" How our hearts burn within us at the scene ! 
Whence this brave bound o'er limits set to man? 
His God supports him in his final hour. 
His final hour brings glory to his God. 
We gaze, we weep mix'd tears of grief and joy; 
Amazement strikes ; devotion burns to flame ; 
Christians admire, and infidels believe." 



ne 



HONOUR INCOMPATIBLE WITH SIN. 125 

I repeat, young gentlemen, in concluding this ad- 
dress, a remark which was made at its commence- 
ment. Though honour and religion are disiincU 
they are allied^ and there can be no high attainments 
in the one without corresponding attainments in the 
other. Strictly speaking, there is not in the uni- 
verse, nor is it possible that there ever should be, 
such a being as an honourable sinner. A sinner 
may indeed, and often does, perform actions which 
seem to indicate lofty and honourable sentiments. 
A factitious splendour is thus flung around his per- 
son, which may, till death, emblazon his character. 
The light of eternity, however, will dissipate that 
splendour. Then the mean and mercenary motives 
which governed him will appear; and, appearing, 
will betray to the just appraisers of merit in heav- 
en a very wretch, in the person of one whom the 
blinded inhabitants of earih delighted to honour. In 
that light the duellist, now pitied for his sensibility 
or celebrated for his courage, will be seen to have 
been either a trembling coward, who wanted nerve 
to endure a sneer, or a malicious murderer, who, 
could he have as certainly escaped the gallows, 
would have employed, not the soldier's, but the as- 
sassin's weapon in his work of death. In that light 
many a sainted patriot will be discovered to have 
been only a wily traitor ; and in many a titled con- 
queror there will be recognised only the grim and 
ferocious visage of a human butcher. \ 

It is not the outward action, but the inward w^o- J\ 
live, that will in heaven secure the plaudit. To you J^ 
all the path of honour is open, because the path of 



I 

[ 



126 VIRTUE ALONE CONFERS HONOUR. 

duty is so. Those titles and distinctions whirl^i little 
minds look up to and covet are merely adventitious. 
Neither the bishop's lawn nor the judge's ermine 
confers any real dignity. He only on the bench 
who imitates the justice of that awful Being who is 
himself a terror to the wicked ; he only at the altar 
who imitates the clemency of that merciful Being who 
is the consolation of the righteous ; he only in the 
field who has drawn his sword from principle, and 
from principle risks his life in defence of the people 
and the cities of his God, will, in the consummation 
of all things, be accounted an honourable man. Let 
the ferocious savage present his crimsoned toma- 
hawk as he mutters his orisons to the demons of 
destruction, and boast of the sculls he has severed 
and the scalps he has strung ; but let not the Chris- 
tian victor count on glory achieved by cruelty. The 
^God of Christians smiles not at carnage, delights 
not in blood. Nor is glory to be gathered only on 
the public theatre or in the tented field. Tou may 
lead an obscure life, and yet an honourable one. 
There is in the cottage, no less than in the palace, 
a majesty in virtue. In presiding over the devotions 
of the parental board ; in the morning prayer, in the 
evening anthem ; in those acts of supplication and 
praise by which the soul mounts upward to the 
throne, and enters the presence of the God of heav- 
en, there is an honour inferior in degree, but not in 
nature, to that which principalities and powers enjoy. 
If the favour of princes confer distinction on those 
around their persons, what must be the distinction of 



SANCTIFYING POWER OF RELIGION. 127 

♦hat contrite man in whom the spirit dwells, and 
whom the Father delights to honour ! 

That it sanctifies the soul, that it brings peace to 
the conscience, these are, indeed, the grand prerog- 
atives of our religion ; but they are not its only pre- 
rogatives. The gospel of grace is rich in honour 
as well as rich in consolation. Its high purpose is 
to recover the sinner from his apostacy, and to sig- 
nalize him hereafter among the sons of God. But, 
in attaining this purpose, and as incidental to it, it 
does signalize him here among the children of men. 
There is no illumination so divine as the illumina- 
tion of the spirit ; there are no virtues so divine a^ , 
the graces of the spirit ; nor is there any march so ^ 
truly glorious as the march through faith and pa-^ 
tience to immortality. 

Go, young gentlemen ; aim at being great only 
by being good ; and hope to be good only by con- ' 
fiding in that glorious Redeemer, through ' whose 
merits alone it is possible that a sinner should be- 
come so. 

God grant you this grace, and to his name shall 
be the glory. 



128 PUBLIC OPINION. 

VIIL 

DELIVERED JULY 27, 1814. 

[Public Opinion as opposed to the Moral Law.— Games o! 
Chance.— Objectionable because they unprofitably consume 
Time. — Because they lead to a misapplication of Property. — 
Because they impart no Expansion or Vigour to the Mind.-* 
Because their Influence on the Affections and Passions is del- 
eterious. — Dreadful Effect of Gaming on Morals and on the 
Sympathies of our Nature.— It leads to Debauchery, to Ava- 
rice, to Intemperance. — The finished Gambler has no Heart. 
— Example of Madame du Deffand, — Brutalized and hopeless 
State of the Gambler and Drunkard. — Warning to Youth to 
avoid the Temptations which lead to these soul-destroying 
Vices.] 

Young gentlemen, man is susceptible of moral 
no less than of intellectual improvement. These 
are the two grand objects of collegiate education. 
Hence its importance, not only to the individual, but 
to community itself. 

No matter what the printed code of civil law may 
be in any country — no matter what the printed code 
of canon law may be, to an immense majority, pub- 
lic opinion constitutes a standard of paramount au- 
thority. But public opinion itself is directed and 
settled among the many by the few, who, either by 
merit or by management, have acquired an ascend- 
ancy, and become the acknowledged arbiters of 
faith and of practice. Some of the points where 
the moral law and public opinion are at issue, have 
on similar occasions been discussed ; there are still 
other points which demand discussion. 



GAMES OF CHANCE. 129 

A good man regulates even his amusements, no 
less than his serious occupations, by the maxims of ' 
morality. Be ye 'perfect as I am peifect^ is the un- | 
quahfied mandate of the Christian lawgiver ; and P 
till we are perfect as He is perfect, we never attain % 
that sublime distinction, to which, as cariididates for f^ 
heaven, we should for ever be aspiring. 

About to bid adieu to this seat of science, per- 
mit me to admonisii you, that it will be your part not 
to receive a tone from, but to give a tone to public 
feeling ; not to learn those lessons of morality which 
the world will inculcate, but to inculcate on the 
world those lessons which you have elsewhere 
learned. 

We have a collegiate law which prohibits card- 
playing, and the other fashionable games related to 
it. In future life, let this law be adopted as one of ' 
those inviolable rules of action which, being irrevo- 
cably settled, are not to be transgressed. Why I 
Because the transgression of it in you, whatever it 
may be in others, will be improper. Do not mis- 
take my meaning ; I am not about to insist on any 
argument drawn from the supposed sacredness of 
games of chance. 

But, if these games are not objectionable as games 
of chance, why are they objectionable ] 

To this question I will attempt an answer. Be- 
fore I commence, however, I would premise, that 
nothing is more foreign from my design than to 
hold up to universal obloquy all those who occasion- 
ally indulge in any of these games. That candour, 
which on all occasions I would wish to exercise 
L 



130 CHARITABLE JUDGMENT. 

as welJ as inculcate, obliges me to concede, that 
there may be found, among the groups at the chess- 
board or the card-table, individuals of very respect- 
able character ; in other particulars, of irreproach- 
able morals, and even, perhaps, of exemplary piety. 
But they are individuals, notwithstanding, whom I 
beheve to be in error. Individuals whom public 
opinion has misguided, and who, like that apostle 
who thought he did God service, have this apology, 
they sin ignorantly. Their situation, in a moral 
point of view, is similar to his, who, in a country 
where slavery is. common, inconsiderately holds a 
fellow-creature in bondage. Were that practice the 
subject of discussion — far from comprehending in 
the same sweeping sentence of reprobation the hu 
mane master who treats with paternal indulgence 
the blacks he inherited from his father, without eve* 
suspecting that they are not as rightfully his property 
as the sheep and oxen which he also inherited — far 
from comprehending this man in the same sweeping 
sentence of reprobation with the unfeeling wretch 
who, in despite of coilscience, of reason, and of law, 
still drives that trade, which he knows to be a fel- 
ony, and deliberately amasses a fortune by the sale 
of human blood — far from comprehending this man 
in the same sentence, I could, on the contrary, ad- 
mit that he might be a philanthropist, and even, in 
the strictest sense of the word, a Christian. But, 
having made this admission, were I called to speak 
in his presence of slavery, I would speak of it as a 
man and a Christian ought to speak of it, with utter 
detestation ; and in the same manner I mean to 



WASTE OF TIME. 131 

speak of gaming. No matter how many fashion- 
able people may be implicated, no matter how 
many of my own personal friends may be implica- 
ted, I have a duty to perform, and I shall neither be 
allured nor awed from the performance of it. The 
question now returns, Why are these games ob- 
jectionable ? 

They are objectionable because they unprojitahly 
consume time, which to every man is precious : be- f^ ^ 
cause they lead to a misapplication of property, for '\/ 
which every man is accountable : because they imr \ 
part no expansion or vigour to the mind ; and be- 
cause their influence on the affections, and passions, 
and heart, is deleterious. ^^ 

1st. Because they unprofitably consume time, 1 
which to every man is precious. Had I your future ^ 
lives at my disposal, I would not wish to impose on 
you any unreasonable austerity. There must be 
seasons of relaxation as well as seasons of exertion. 
Rest necessarily follows action, and is in its turn 
conducive to it. It is conceded that a student needs 
recreation of mind ; but the card-table does not fur- 
nish him with it. He needs exercise of body ; 
neither does it furnish him with that. With what, 
then, that is worth having, does it furnish him? 
With nothing. From hours thus spent there is no 
result beneficial to himself or to any other human 
being. The time elapsed is wasted. To all the 
useful purposes of life, of death, or of existence after 
death, it is as though it had never been. 

But who, during a trial so momentous and so 
transitory, has vacant hours at his disposal ? Has 



132 MISAPPLICATION OF PROPERTY. 

the young man preparing for action ? Has the old 
man sinking down to death ? Has the father, 
charged with the education of his sons 1 Has the 
mother, intrusted with the instruction of her daugh- 
ters 1 Ah ! could I address these eternal idlers with 
the same freedom that I address myself to you, I 
would ask them whether so many hours were given 
to play because there no longer remained to them 
any duties to be performed ? I would ask them, 
are the hungry fed? Are the naked clothed ? Are 
the sick visited ? Is the mourner consoled ? Is the 
orphan provided for ? Are all the offices of friend- 
ship and of charity executed 1 Are all the demands 
of the closet and of the altar cancelled '? All, all 
cancelled ! And yet, as successive days glide away, 
does there remain in each such a dismal void to be 
filled with the frivolous, not to say guilty, amuse- 
ments of the card-table? Perhaps it is so. But, 
oh God ! thou knowest it was not thus with those 
saints of old whom thou hast held up to us as ex- 
amples. Their time was wholly occupied. With 
labours of love each day was filled up. Nor were 
their evenings devoted to play : nay, nor even their 
nights to repose. Often, for the performance of 
omitted duties, hours were borrowed from the sea- 
son of rest which the shortness of the season of 
acfion had denied. 

2d. Because they lead to a misapplication ofprop^ 
erty. Games of hazard, particularly where cards 
are concerned, tend imperceptibly to gambling. 

Play at first is resorted to as a pastime, and the 
gamester becomes an idler only. This is the in- 



PLAYING FOR MONEY. 133 

ceptive step- But mere play has not enough of in- 
terest in it to excite continued attention, even in the 
most frivolous minds. To supply this defect, the 
passion of avarice is addressed by the intervention 
of a trifling stake. This is the second step. The 
third is deep and presumptuous gambling ; here, all 
that the adventurer can command is hazarded, and 
gam, not amusement, becomes the powerful motive 
that inspires him. These are the stages of play at 
cards : that delusive and treacherous science which 
has beggared so many families, made so many youth 
profligates, and blasted for ever so many parents' 
hopes. 

But is a stake at play wrong in principle ? It is 
so. Nor is the nature of the transaction changed 
by any increase or diminution of amount. Not that 
it is a crime to hazard, but to hazard wrongfully ; 
to hazard where no law authorizes it ; where neither 
individual prudence, nor any principle of public 
policy requires it. Property is a trust, and the hold-? \ 
er is responsible for its use. He may employ it in 
trade ; he may give it away in charity, but he may 
not wantonly squander it : he may not even lightly 
hazard the loss of it for no useful purpose, where 
there is no probability that the transaction will, on 
the whole, be beneficial, either to the parties or the 
community. 

But I may not pass thus lightly over this subject. 
The nature of gambling, considered as an occupa- 
tion, and the relative situation of gamblers, ought to 
be attended to. The issue which the parties join, 
the rivalship in which thev engage, neither directly 



/ 



/ 



^v, 



134 GAMBLERS, 

nor indirectly promote any interest of comnri unity. 
They have no relation to agriculture, none to com- 
merce, none to manufactures. They furnish no 
bread to the poor, hold out no motive to industry, 
\ apply no stimulus to enterprise. Gaming is an em- 
ployment sui generis. The talent it occupies is so 
much deducted from that intelligence which super- 
intends the concerns of the world ; the capital it 
employs is so much withdrawn from the stock re- 
quired for the commerce of the world. Let the 
\ stake be gained or lost, as it will, society gains no- 
thing. The managers of this ill-appropriated fund 
are not identified in their pursuits with any of those 
Uclasses whose ingenuity or whose labours benefit 
i Isociety ; nor by any of those rapid changes through 
I ^^hich their treasure passes is there anything pro- 
I Iduced hy which community is indemnified. 
^1 The situation of gamblers with respect to each 
i other is as singular and unnatural as their situation 
,with respect to the rest of mankind. Here, again, 
the order of nature is reversed, the constitution of 
God is subverted, and an association is formed, not 
for mutual benefit, but for acknowledged mutual in- 
j jury. Precisely as much as the one gains, the oth- 
\ er loses. No equivalent is given, none is received. 
\ The property indeed changes hands, but its quality 
\ is not improved, its amount is not augmented. 
\ '^ In the mean time, the one who loses is a profii- 
\ gate, who throws away, without any requital, the 
\ property he possesses. The one who gains is a 
Ruffian, who pounces hke a vulture on property which 
ne possesses not, and which he has acquired no right 



WASTE OF TIME BY GAMING. 135 

to possess ; while both are useless members of so- 
ciety — mere excrescences on the body pohtic. 
Worse than this, they are a nuisance ; like leeches 
on the body of some mighty and vigorous animal, 
which, though they suck their aliment from its blood, 
contribute nothing to its nourishment. No matter 
how numerous these vagabonds (for I will not call 
them by a more reputable name) may be in any 
community ; no matter how long they may live, or 
how assiduously they may prosecute their vocation. 
No monument of good, the product of that vocation, 
will remain behind them. They will be remem- 
bered only by the waste they have commited or the 
injury they have done ; while, with respect to all the 
usetul purposes of being, it will be as if they had 
never been. 

And is there no guilt in such an application of 
property as this ? Did Almighty God place man- 
kind here for an occupation so mean ? Did he be- 
stow on them treasures for an end so ignoble ? It 
Jesus Christ condemned to outer darkness that un- 
profitable servant who, having wrapped his talent in 
a napkin only, buried it in the earth, what think you 
will be his sentence on the profligate, who, having 
staked and lost his all, goes from the gaming-table, 
a self-created pauper, to the judgment-seat. Nor 
will the Judge less scrupulously require an account 
of the cents you have for amusement put down at 
piquet, than he would had you played sway at brag 
the entire amount of the shekel of the sanctuary. 

But you do not mean to gamble nor to advocate 
it. I know you do not. But I also know, if you 



136 PROGRESS OF THE GAMBLER. 

play at all, you will ultimately do both. It is but 
a line that separates between innocence and sin. 
Whoever fearlessly approaches this line will soon 
have crossed it. To keep at a distance, therefore, 
is the part of wisdom. No man ever made up his 
mind to consign to perdition his soul at once. No 
man ever entered the known avenues which conduct 
to such an end with a firm and undaunted step. 
The brink of ruin is approached with caution, and 
by imperceptible degrees ; and the wretch who now 
stands fearlessly scoffing there, but yesterday had 
shrunk back from the awful cliff with trembling. 
A Do you wish for illustration? The profligate's un- 
jl written history will furnish it. How inoffensive its 
^ ? commencement, how sudden and how frightful its 
catastrophe ! Let us review his life. He com- 
mences with play ; but it is only for amusement. 
Next he hazards a trifle to give interest, and is sur- 
I prised when he finds himself a gainer by the hazard. 
He then ventures, not without misgivings, on a 
deeper stake. That stake he loses. ^ The loss 
I and the guilt oppress him. He drinks to revive his 
spirits. His spirits revived, he stakes to retrieve 
his fortune. Again he is unsuccessful, and again 
his spirits flag, and again the inebriating cup revives 
them. Ere he is aware of it, he has become a 
drunkard ; he has also become a bankrupt. Re- 
source fails him. His fortune is gone; his char- 
acter is gone ; his tenderness of conscience is gone. 
/I God has withdrawn his spirit from him. The de- 
' I mon of despair takes possession of his bosom ; rea- 
,.1- son deserts him. He becomes a maniac ; the pis< 



CORRUPTING EFFECTS OF GAMING. 137 

tol or the poniard closes the scene ; and with a 
shiiek he plunges, unwept and forgotten, into — hell. 

But there are other lights in which this subject 
should be viewed. The proper aliment of the body 
is ascertained by its effects. Whatever is nutritious 
is selected; whatever is poisonous, avoided. Let 
a man of common prudence perceive the deleteri- 
ous effects of any fruit, however fair to the eye, 
however sweet to the taste ; let him perceive these 
effects in the haggard countenances and swollen 
limbs of those who have been partaking of it, and, 
although he may not be able to discover wherein its 
poisonous nature consists, he admits that it is poi- 
sonous, and shrinks from participating in a repast in 
which some secret venom lurks, that has proved fatal 
to many, and injurious to most who have hitherto tast- 
ed it. Why should not the same circumspection be 
used with respect to the aliment of the mind ? It 
undoubtedly should. But gaming presents even a 
stronger case than the one we have supposed ; for 
not only the fact, but the reason of it is obvious ; so 
that we may repeat what has been already said of 
games of hazard : they impart little or no expansion 
or vigour to the mind ; and their influence on the 
affections, and passions, and heart is deleteyious. 

When I affirm that these games impart little or 
no expansion or vigour to the mind, I do not mean 
to be understood that they are or can be performed 
entirely without intellection. It is conceded that 
the silliest game requires some understanding, and 
that to play at it is above the capacity of an oyster, 
or even of an ox, or of an ape. It is conceded, too. 



138 STUPIDITY OF GAMING. 

that games of every sort require some study; the 
most of them, however, require but Httle ; and, after 
the few first efforts, the intellectual condition of the 
gamester, so far as his occupation is concerned, is 
but one degree removed from that of the dray-horse 
buckled to his harness, and treading over from day 
to day, and from night to night, the same dull track, 
as he turns a machine which some mind of a higher 
order has invented. So very humble is this species 
of occupation ; so very limited the sphere in which 
it allows the mind to operate, that, if any individual 
were to remain through the term of his existence 
mute and motionless — in the winter state of the 
Norwegian bear — his intellectual career would be 
about as splendid, and his attainments in knowledge 
about as great as they would were he to commence 
play at childhood, and continue on at whist or loo 
through eternity. For, though the latter state of be- 
ing presupposes some exercise of the mental facul 
ties, it is so little, so low, and so uniform, that, if the 
result be not literally nothings it approaches nearer 
to it than the result of any other state of being to 
which an intelligent creature can be doomed short 
of absolute inanity or death. 

How unlike in its effect must be this unmeaning 
shuffle of cards, this eternal gazing on the party- 
coloured surface of a few small pieces of pasteboard, 
where nothing but spades, and hearts, and diamonds, 
and clubs, over and over again, every hour of the 
day, every hour of the night, meet the sleepless eye 
of the vacant beholder : how unlike must be the ef- 
fect of this pitiful employment, continued for fifty or 



NEWTON, BACON, PALEY. 139 

for seventy years, to that which would have been 
produced on the same mind in the same period by 
following the track of Newton to those sublime re- 
sults, whither he has led the way, in the regions of 
abstraction ; by communing with the soul of Bacon, 
deducing from individual facts the universal laws of 
the material universe ; or by mounting with Her- 
schel to the Atheneum of the firmament, and there 
learning, direct from the volume of the stars, the 
science of astronomy? How unlike to that which 
would have been produced in the same period by 
ranging with Paley through the department of mor- 
als ; by soaring with Hervey on the wing of devo- 
tion ; or even by tracing the footsteps of Tooke 
amid the mazes of philology ? 

Card-playing has not even the merit of the com- 
mon chit-chat of the tea-table. Here there is some 
scope for reason, some for the play of fancy, some 
occasion for mental effort, some tendency to habits 
of quick association, in attack, in repartee, and in the 
various turns resorted to for keeping up and enliven- 
ing conversation. Much less has it the merit of 
higher and more rational discourse, of music, of 
painting, or of reading. 

Indeed, if an occupation were demanded for the 
express purpose of perverting the human intellect ; 
for humbling, and degrading, and narrowing, I had 
almost said annihilating, the soul of man, one more 
effectual could not well be devised than the game- 
ster has already devised and resorted to. The fa- 
ther and mother of a family, who, instead of assem- 
bling their children in the reading-room or conduct- 



140 SUBLIME USES OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ing them to the altar, seat them night after night be* 
side themselves at the gaming-table, do, so far as 
this part of their domestic economy is concerned, 
contribute not only to quench their piety, but also to 
extinguish their intellect, and convert them into au- 
tomatons, living mummies, the mere mechanical 
members of a domestic gambling-machine, which, 
though but litde soul is necessary, requires a num- 
ber of human hands to work it ; and if, under such 
a blighting culture, they do not degenerate into a 
state of mere mechanical existence, and, gradually 
losing their reason, their taste, and their fancy, be- 
come incapable of conversation, the fortunate pa- 
rents may thank the schoolhouse, the church, the 
library, the society of friends, or some other and less 
wretched part of their own defective system for 
preventing so frightful a consummation. 

Such, young gentlemen, are the morbid and de- 
grading effects of play on the human intellect. But 
intelligence constitutes no inconsiderable part of the 
glory of man ; a glory which, unless eclipsed by 
crime, increases as intelligence increases. Knowl- 
edge is desirable with reference to this world, but 
principally so with reference to the next. Not that 
philosophy, or language, or mathematics will cer- 
tainly be pursued in heaven ; but because the pur- 
suit of them on earth gradually communicates that 
quickness of perception, that acumen, which, as it 
increases, approximates towards the sublime and 
sudden intuition of celestial intelligences, and which 
cannot fail to render more splendid the commence- 
ment and the progression of man's interminable ca- 
reer. 



EFFECT OF GAMING ON THE HEART. 141 

But, while gaming leaves the mind to languish, it 
produces its full effect on the passions and on the 
heart. Here, however, the effect is positively del- 
eterious. None of the sweet and amiable sympa- 
thies are called into action at the card-table. No 
throb of ingenuous and philanthropic feeling is ex- 
cited by this detestable expedient for killing time, as 
it is called ; and it is rightly so called, for many a 
murdered hour will witness at the day of judgment 
against that fashionable idler who divides her time 
between her toilet and the card-table, no less than 
against the profligate, hackneyed in the ways of sin, 
and steeped in all the filth and debauchery connect- 
ed with gambling. But it is only aniid the filth and 
debauchery connected with gambling that the full 
effects of card-playing on the passions and on the 
heart of man are seen. 

Here the mutual amity that elsewhere subsists \ 
ceases ; paternal affection ceases ; even that com-? I 
munity of feeling which piracy excites, and which ^^ 
binds the very banditti together, has no room to op- If 
erate ; for at this inhospitable board every man's in- 
terest clashes with every other man's interest, andy 
every man's hand is literally against every man. {J^ 

The love of mastery and the love of money are 
the purest motives of which the gamester is suscep- 
tible. And even the love of mastery loses all its 
nobleness, and degenerates into the love of lucre, 
which ultimately predominates, and becomes the 
ruling passion. 

Avarice is always base ; but the gamester's ava- 
rice is doubly so. It is avarice unmixed with any 



142 AVARICE OF THE GAMBLE!?. 

ingredient of magnanimity or mercy. Avarice that 
wears not even the guise of public spirit ; that 
claims not even the meager praise of hoarding up 
its own hard earnings. On the contrary, it is an 
avarice that wholly feeds upon the losses, and only 
delights itself with the miseries of others ; an ava- 
rice that eyes with covetous desire whatever is not 
individually its own ; that crouches to throw its 
clutches over that booty by which its comrades are 
enriched ; an avarice, in short, that stoops to rob a 
\ traveller, that sponges a guest, and that would filch 
^ the very dust from the pocket of a friend. 

But, though avarice predominates, other related 

f passions are called into action. The bosom that 

f was once serene and tranquil becomes habitually 

perturbed. Envy rankles, jealousy corrodes, anger 

rages, and hope and fear alternately convulse the 

system. The mildest disposition grows morose ; 

^ the sweetest temper becomes fierce and fiery, and 

y all the once amiable features of the heart assume a 

4 malignant aspect. Features of the heart did I say] 

I \ Pardon my mistake. The finished gambler has no 

I heart. Though his intellect may not be, though his 

soul may not be, his heart is quite annihilated. 

Thus habitual gambling consummates what habit- 
ual play commences. Sometimes its deadening in- 
fluence prevails even over female virtue, eclipsing 
all the loveliness and benumbing all the sensibility 
of woman. In every circle where cards form the 
bond of union, frivolity and heartlessness become 
alike characteristics of the mother and the daughter ; 
devotion ceases ; domestic care is shaken off. and 



EXAMPLE OF MADAME DU DEFFAND. 143 

the dearest friends, even before their burial, are con- 
signed to oblivion. 

This is not exaggeration. I appeal to fact. 
Madame du DefTand was certainly not among the 
least accomplished or the least interesting females 
who received and imparted that exquisite tone of feel- 
ing that pervaded the most fashionable society of 
modern Paris. And yet it is recorded of her, in the 
correspondence of the Baron de Grimm, whose vera- 
city will not be questioned, that, immediately after the 
death of her old and intimate friend and admirer, M. 
de Ponte de Vesle, this celebrated lady attended a 
great supper in the neighbourhood ; and as it was 
known that she made it a point of honour to be ac- 
companied by him, the catastrophe was generally 
suspected. She mentioned it, however, herself, im- 
mediately after entering ; adding, that it was lucky 
he had gone off so early in the evening, as she might 
otherwise have been prevented from appearing. She 
then sat down to table, and made a very hearty and 
merry meal. 

Afterward, when Madame de Chatelet died, Ma- 
dame du Deffand testified her grief for the most inti- 
mate of all her female acquaintances by circulating, 
the very next morning, throughout Paris, the most 
libellous and venomous attack on her person, her 
understanding, and her morals. 

This utter heartlessness, this entire extinction of 
native feeling, was not peculiar to Madame du Def- 
fand ; it pervaded that accomplished and fashionable 
circle in which she moved. Hence she herself, in 
turn, experienced the same kind of sympathy ; and 



n 



144 reckleSkSness of the gambler. 

her memory was consigned to the same instantaneous 
oblivion. During her last illness, three of her dear- 
est friends used to come and play cards every night 
by the side of her couch ; and she choosing to die 
in the middle of a very interesting game, they quiet 
ly played it out, and settled their accounts before 
leaving the apartment.* 

I do not say that such are the uniform, but I do 
say that such are the natural and legitimate effects 
of gaming on the female character. The love of 
play is a demon, which only takes possession as it 
kills the heart. But, if such is the effect of gaming 
on the one sex, what must be its effect upon the 
other ? Will nature long survive in bosoms inva- 
ded not by gaming only, but also by debauchery and 
drunkenness, those sister furies which hell has let 
^ loose, to cut off our young men from without, and 
J our children from the streets ? No, it will not. As 
' we have said, the finished gambler has no heart. The 
club with which he herds would meet though all its 
members were in mourning. They would meet 
though their place of rendezvous were the chamber 
of the dying ; they would meet though it wer*? an 
.apartment in the charnel-house. Not even the 
death of kindred can affect the gambler. He would 
play upon his brother's coffin ; he would play upon 
his father's sepulchre. 
^\^ Yonder see that wretch, prematurely old in infirm- 
ity as well as sin. He is the father of a family. 
The mother of his children, lovely in her tears, 
strives by the tenderest assiduities to restore his 
* See Quarterly Review, 



ULTIMATE RESULTS OF GAMBLING. 145 

health, and with it to restore his temperance, his 
love of home, and the long-lost charms of domestic 
life. She pursues him by her kindness and her en- 
treaties to his haunts of vice ; she reminds him of 
his children ; she tells him of their virtues, of their 
sorrows, of their wants, and she adjures him, by the 
love of them and by the love of God, to repent and 
to return. Vain attempt ! She might as well ad- 
jure the whirlwind ; she might as well entreat the 
tiojer. 

The brute has no feeling left. He turns upon 
her in the spirit of the demons with which he is pos- 
sessed. He curses his children and her who bare 
them ; and, as he prosecutes his game, he fills the 
intervals with imprecations on himself — with impre- 
cations on his Maker — imprecations borrowed from 
the dialect of devils, and uttered with a tone that 
befits only the organs of the damned ! And yet in 
this monster there once dwelt the spirit of a man. 
He had talents, he had honour, he had even faith. 
He might have adorned the senate, the bar, the altar. 
But, alas ! his was a faith that saveth not. The 
gaming-table has robbed him of it, and of all things 
else that is worth possessing. What a frightful 
change of character ! What a tremendous wreck 
is the soul of man in ruins ! 

Return, disconsolate mother, to thy dwelling, and 
be submissive ; thou shalt be a widow, and thy chil- 
dren fatherless. Farther effort will be useless : thek 
reformation of thy partner is impossible. God has- 
forsaken him ; nor will good angels weep or watch 
over him any more. 

M 



146 EXHORTATION TO YOUTH. 

Against this fashionable amusement, so subver- 
sive of virtue, so productive of guilt, so inseparable 
from misery, I adjure you to bear, at all times and 
on all occasions, a decisive testimony. And I do 
this, not only that you may escape destruction your- 
selves, but also that you may not be the occasion ol 
others' destruction. What more shall I say ? For 
time would fail me to point out all the dangers that 
will attend your steps, or to enumerate all the tempt- 
ations that will assail your virtue. I can only, there- 
fore, in closing this address, repeat to each of you 
that summary but solemn admonition which the 
royal preacher once delivered to the youth of Israel : 
Rejoice, oh young man, in thy youth, and lei thy 
heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk 
in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine 
eyes; but know thou that for all these things God 
will bring thee into judgment. 

Creator of our souls. Father of the spirits of all 
living, grant to our youth wisdom, and to thy name 
shall be the glory in Christ. Aimen. 



DUTY AND INTEREST INSEPARABLE. 147 

IX. 

DELIVERED JULY 26, 1815. 

Skeptical Notions in regard to the Providence of God, and his re- 
tributive Jijstice. — The condition of the Virtuous and Vicious in 
this World affords no argument against the position that God 
will reward the one and punish the other. — A future State of 
Existence is certain, and must be taken into account in judging 
of the Character and Designs of God. — The inward Peace en- 
joyed by the Virtuous, and the Trouble and Remorse experi- 
enced by the Vicious, indications of God's Moral Govern- 
ment. — The Trials of the Righteous intended to exalt and pu- 
rify their Character. — Consolations of the Righteous in the 
view of Death, and the Happiness that awaits them in a fu- 
ture State of Being.] 

Young gentlemen, the God of righteousness is 
the friend of happiness. Hence man's duty and his 
interest are inseparable. This has sometimes been 
doubted, sometimes even explicitly denied. In re-, 
mote antiquity there hved those who said, " It is in 
vain to serve God ; and what profit is it that we have 
kept his ordinances ?" 

To adopt this gloomy hypothesis, so fatal to the 
eternal interests of mankind, was not pecuHar to 
those who lived in remote antiquity. Now, as for- 
merly, there are profane men, who, with respect to 
all the rewards of virtue, are utter skeptics. Both 
experience and observation are appealed to ; and, 
as if this transitory life were the whole of man, it is 
triumphantly asserted. That the proud are happy ; 
that those who work wickedness are set up, and those 
who tempt God are delivered. 



148 ERRORS OF SKEPTICISlVi. 

Nor is it profane men only who have miscon- 
strued, and who still misconstrue, on this article, the 
ways of Providence. The saint of XJz, the psalm- 
ist of Israel, and even Solomon himself, than whom 
a wiser prince has not lived, were embarrassed at 
the seeming prosperity of the wicked. 

A bewildering obscurity does indeed hang over 
this part of the Divine Economy. To a short-sight- 
ed and superficial observer, that balance in which the 
actions of men are weighed seems to be held with 
an equal hand. To say the least, it is not always 
and at every stage of beings apparent that God re- 
gards the righteous more than the wicked ; and be- 
cause it is not always apparent, men of perverse 
minds presumptuously infer that he does not. 

The Divine care, say they, if indeed there be any 
Divine care, is extended alike to all. No partiality 
is discoverable in the distribution of His most pub- 
lic and important gifts. Air, and water, and sun- 
shine are as free as they are abundant. Does food 
statedly nourish, and sleep refresh the pious ] So 
they do the impious. The flocks of the latter are 
as vigorous, their pastures are as green, and their 
husbandry as productive as those of the former. No 
flower withers as the sinner plucks it ; the earth 
sinks not beneath his unhallowed tread, nor does 
the sun avert his beams from his heaven-directed eye. 

If God be the rewarder of virtue, why do trans- 
gressors live ? And yet they do live : more than 
this, they prosper. Those who are hampered by 
the restraints of duty are overthrown by them ; and 
through crimes and blood they force their way to 



WRONG VIEWS OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER. 149 

place and power. His saints cry to him, but he 
hears them not : they present their claim, but it is 
disregarded. Rags cover them, and they are fed 
with the bread of bitterness : a conclusive evidence 
that there is no God, or that virtue is of little estima- 
tion in his sight. 

Thus argue the enemies of religion. But let no 
young adventurer, no aspiring candidate for glory, 
be misguided by it. All that has been said or that 
can be said in favour of a theory so humiliating to 
man, so derogatory to God, is mere sophistry : 
sophistry disguised, indeed, but gross and palpable. 

Because the reward of virtue is not in every in- 
stance simultaneous with the act, does it follow that 
virtue has no reward ? Waits not the husbandman 
for the fruits of hi.s industry until the harvest ? And 
yet who pretends that his care and labour are thrown 
away ? No one. On the contrary, all say, as he 
goes forth weeping to scatter the precious seed. 
Doubtless he will return rejoicings hearing his sheaves 
with him. Can that be true where religion is con- 
cerned, that would be false with respect to all things 
else 1 

Let the rash theorist remember that he has seen 
but a very small part of man's existence, and that 
part, too, which is only inceptive and preparatory. 
Conclusions drawn from a part to the whole are al- 
ways defective, and in this instance may prove as 
fatal as fallacious. Be it remembered that the race 
must be finished ere the prize is won ; that the vic- 
tory must be achieved before it can be expected that 
the crown should be placed on the victor's brow. 



150 RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE OF GOD. 

The unjust steward, as well as the just, retained his 
talent till the day of reckoning. 

It is not the equivocal fact of having been intrust- 
ed with a few pieces of money, or with a spot of earth 
a little larger than others, but the retribution that shall 
follow the use or abuse of that trust, which will con- 
vey to the universe the evidence of God's eternal 
and impartial justice. To ascertain whether religion 
be advantageous or not, something more than the fu- 
gitive joys and sorrows of this illusive world must 
be considered. Is what we see the whole of be- 
ing, or is there an after scene ? If so, what is its 
duration, what its character ? And will that which 
precedes give a complexion to that which follows ? 
These are questions which awaken a solemn inter- 
est, and questions, too, which must be answered be- 
fore it is possible to pronounce, with even a shadow 
of truth, upon the destiny of man. 

True, the ultimate reward of virtue is at present 
a matter of faith and not of sight ; but of faith rest- 
ing on high and responsible authority. All the phe- 
nomena of nature, all the economy of Providence, 
all the forebodings of the heart of man, intimate, 
what the Scriptures declare. That after death comes 
the judgment. The impious may sneer, the skep- 
tic may doubt, and guess, and conjecture ; but dare 
even he, in the face of all this evidence, affirm that 
he knoivs that this is not the case ] And if he dare 
not, then, even the skeptic being judge, the interests 
of virtue may be secure, and the rapturous anticipa- 
tions of Saul of Tarsus well founded, who, in the 
near approach of death, triumphantly exclaimed, 1 



HIGHER PLEASURES THAi\ Oi' rSENSE. 151 

have fought the good Jight I And should the rap- 
turous anticipation of Saul of Tarsus be well found- 
ed, how will stand the account ? Ah, hearer ! when 
weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, bonds, and 
stripes, and imprisonment are only light afflictions, 
unworthy to be put in competition with that exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory hereafter to be re- 
vealed. 

But, eternity apart, it is not true that religion has 
no reward ; and the arrogant assumption that it has 
not, to whatever period of existence it be limited, or 
to whatever part of God's creation it be applied, is 
as false in fact as it is impious in theory. Not that 
its heaven-approved possessor is uniformly, or even 
usually signalized by what the sensual call prosperity. 
And what though he is not ? Is he an animal mere- 
ly, that his health and thrift should be estimated by 
the limits or the luxuriance of the pasture in which 
he ranges, or by the quantity of fodder that is thrown 
before him by his keeper ? In testing his well-be- 
ing, the things that concern the body are of small 
account. Here, as elsewhere, 

" The mind's the measure of the man." 

Food and raiment, to an incarnate spirit, are desira- 
ble ; but they are not the only things that are so. 
To such a spirit, the precious metals have their 
value ; but there are other gifts within the compass 
of God's almightiness still more valuable than the pre- 
cious metals. So David, having made the experi- 
ment, decided ; so Solomon, having made the experi- 
ment, decided. Not all the honours royalty could 



152 RELIGION HAS A PRESENT REWARD. 

confer, not all the luxuries that affluence could pro- 
cure, furnished, in their impartial estimation, so pure 
or so perfect a pleasure as that which is conveyed 
to the heart through the consecrated channel of de- 
votion : nor is devotion the only channel of delight, 
refined and exquisite. 

Yirtue, in all its acts, carries with it a reward. In 

/ the exercise of conscious rectitude, in the perform- 

/ ance of charitable offices, in feeding the poor, in min- 

I istering id the sick, in consoling the mourner, and in 

I guiding inquiring souls in the way to heaven, there 

\ is a blessedness so holy, so divine, that the gross 

\ delights of sensuality, and the corrosive joys of ava- 

\ rice and ambition, are in comparison only disguised 

misery. 

There is much illusion in that apparent glory which 
wealth and honour seem to throw around the sinner. 
None but a novice will estimate a man's happiness 
by the extent of his possessions. Solomon is not 
J the only one who has seen riches kept for the oioners 
\ thereof to their hurt. What were crowns and king- 
doms worth, to be held by such a tenure 1 And 
yet by such a tenure many an envied profligate holds 
whatever of wealth and honour he possesses. In 
vain he strives to conceal his misery. He smiles 
and smiles, but is still accursed. 

This is one of the ways in which God, in his in 
scrutable providence, and notwithstanding appear 
ances to the contrary, distinguishes the righteous 
from the wicked. To the former, though -he give 
sparingly, he gives in mercy, and it becomes a double 
blessing. To the latter he gives bountifully ; but 



UNSATISFYING NATURE OF RICHES. 153 

he gives in wrath, and it proves a curse. Ifence 
the favourites of the world are for ever repining at 
their lot. And well they may repine at it ; for ev- 
ery addition to unsanctified wealth only corrodes the 
heart with new cares, and agitates the bosom with 
new desires. This is no exaggeration. I appeal 
to fact. Long and often has the experiment been 
tried. Among those prayerless sinners whom so 
many account happy, wealth has been distributed. 
But with what effect? Has ambition anywhere 
been satisfied ? Or has avarice ever been heard to 
say it is enough? No, never. On the contrary, 
both, hungry as the grave, cry. Give, give. And 
God does give. But still the cry is repeated, and 
will continue to be repeated till death stifles it ; for 
it is prompted by an appetite that is never satiated, 
and by a thirst that is never quenched. 

Selfishness may possess the world, but benevo- \ 
lence alone can enjoy it. Better is a dry morsel / ) 
with conterdment, than a house full of sacrifices with 
strife. It is not the flocks that a man numbers, the 
slaves he commands, or the domains which he calls C 
his own ; it is not the palace he inhabits, the crown ) 
on his head, or the sceptre in his hand, but the 
amount of blessedness he derives from them, that is ; 
to be taken into the account in determining whether 
mercy or vengeance be the predominant feature of his 
lot. The devout eye, in only beholding the fields, 
and groves, and gardens which display so manyi 
beauties around some licentious court or inhospita-; ' 
ble mansion, often derives more happiness from the , 
scene than it ever conveys to its graceless Dud/. 
havghty owner. 



154 SIN DESTROYS HAPPINESS. 

Y There is an obscuring and deadening influence in 

n> sin. It destroys the sensibihty ; it perverts the taste ; 

^, and it sheds over the intellectual and moral eye a 

^^sombrous and sickly light, in which heaven, and 

J earth, and nature, and art, appear alike dim and glory- 

1 less. No Providence is seen ; no parent's love is 

recognised ; no pulse of joy, no throb of gratitude is 

\ felt. A dismal ennui consumes the solitary hour, 

\ and even the social revel is but heartless affectation 

^ and mimic mirth. Oh God ! it is by prosperity that 

\ thou dost inflict upon the wicked thy strange ven- 

^^ geance. Their bane is the mercies which they re- 

, ceive, but acknowledge not ; and, not acknowledg- 

^^ing them, they cease to be mercies. It was ordain- 

. ed of old that it should be so ; and so it is that 

t virtue enjoys more even of this world in rags and 

peottages, than does vice in robes and courts ; and it 

H^were better, heaven and hell out of the question, to- 

f subsist like Lazarus on crumbs sweetened by sub- 
mission, than to revel at luxurious banquets with 
^+ Dives and his faithless guests. 
, But neither to saints nor sinners is life made up 
^ of banquets. This world presents not a uniform, 
I but a mixed scene. Light and shade are blended. 
^"p And if to all there are some days of sunshine and joy, 
so to all there are some of darkness and wo. These 
latter must be subtracted, and the balance of pains 
and pleasures struck, before we can pronounce with 
safety on the comparative blessedness of the right- 
eous and the wicked. Though the former were less 
afiiuent and honoured, and more despised and tram- 
pled on than they are, it would not follow that they 



THE CHRISTIAN S JOY IN TRIBULATION. 155 

are less happy or less favoured of God on that ac- 
count. Are their afflictions great? So also, and 
more abundantly, may be their consolations. I am 
aware that the history of godliness is a history filled 
with objects of terror ; and that many of its scenes 
are drawn in characters of blood. I am aware 
that persecution has often prepared her racks and 
kindled her fires ; that men of the purest virtue and 
of the holiest faith have been seen to pine in dun- 
geons and to wander in exile. But neither dungeons 
nor exile were to them so great an evil as their per- 
secutors had imagined. Not sighs, but songs, were 
heard from that prison where Paul and Silas were 
confined. As joyous as wakeful, at midnight, when 
deliverance came, it found them praying and singing 
psalms. Nor were Paul and Silas the only saints 
that have rejoiced in tribulation. Usually, if not 
uniformly, the confessor's faith has nobly supported 
him ; nor has the martyr's heart been broken by the 
stroke that felled his body. And how should the 
martyr's heart be broken by the stroke that felled his 
body ? The afflictions of the righteous differ essen- 
tially in their nature and in their design from those 
of the wicked, to whom the arm of the Almighty is 
a scourge, and who, when the world forsakes them, 
have no deliverer. To the one the cup of sorrow 
is salutary and mingled with mercy ; to the other it ^ 
is deleterious and overflows with wrath. ^ 

The great refiner subjects both the precious met 
al and the vile to the action of fire, but for very dif- 
ferent purposes. It is to purify the one, it is to 



156 TRIALS EXALT AND PURIFY. 

consume the other ; and his purposes are accom* 
^.plished. The one is consumed, the other purified. 
£*" ' Often have the subUmest virtues, the hoHest af* 
^ factions been evolved under the influence of sorrow. 
How much has this globe of earth risen in impor- 
tance ; how much has the race of man been exalted ; 
how much has the universe gained of goodness and 
glory, by the afflictions through which the saints 
have been called to pass ? Ah ! had the trial of vir- 
tue been dispensed with, and had there been no such 
thing in the economy of Providence as tribmation to 
the righteous, the examples of Abraham, and Moses, 
and David would have been lost ; the exaftiples of 
the apostles and of the martyrs would have been 
lost ; the field of moral beauty narrowed and sullied, 
and the record of the tenderest incidents stricken 
from the history of the world. What good man, 
what friend of God and of righteousness would have 
been willing, had the question been submitted to his 
choice, to purchase temporal ease and affluence by 
. such a sacrifice? No one. It is good for the in- 
j habitants of the earth ; it is good for the inhabitants 
/^ of heaven ; it is good for the saints themselves, that 
^, they have been afflicted. And we may consecrate, 
therefore, and apply, without the same incertitude, the 
words which the exiled JEneas addressed to his de 
sponding followers : 

" O passi graviora ! dabit Deus his quoque finem. 

revocate animos, moBstumque timorem 

Mittite ; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit ,*' 

/ But what crowns the argument, so far as earth 
I and time are concerned, is this : that virtue, ivhich 



CONSOLATION IN DEATH. 157 

in affliction enjoys greater consolation^ in death suf- 
fers less misery. 

Whatever wealth and honour may be worth to the 
living, they are nothing to the dead, nothing even to 
the dying ! That decisive change sunders all the 
ties that bind a mortal to the world. The hour of 
dissolution is emphatically the hour of trial. Then, 
more than at any other period, the affrighted, ago- 
nized victim feels dependance — needs assistance ; 
and if there be anything of power to give this — any- 
thing of power to abate the horrors and cheer the 
darkness of the death-scene, the bestowment of that^ 
more than any other token within the gift of Provi- 
dence, ascertains who they are among the dwellers 
on the earth whom the God of Heaven delights to 
favour and to honour. There is that which has 
power to do this. The calm and tranquil, the rap- 
turous and triumphant death of thousands prove it. 

The hope of eternal life, the sweet assurance of 
forgiven sin, the smile of redeeming mercy, the 
sight of heaven breaking on the soul through the 
twilight of that long, dismal night, of which death 
seems but the commencement — there is somethinor 
so precious, so consoling, so divine in such an exit 
from the world, that, were it attainable only by a life 
of perpetual martyrdom, I should still devoutly pray 
to God, Let me, even on such terms, die the death 
of the righteous, and lei my last end be like his. 
Yes, even on such terms I should account the ,^ond 
man blessed. Yes, even on such terms I should 
covet the confessor's dungeon, I should covet the 
martyr's stake 



158 EXHORIATION TO EARLY PIETY. 

Ah ! beloved pupils, we may here, and at the 
moment of separation, discuss the comparative ad- 
vantages of vice and virtue ; but it is not here that 
we can feel the full force of that discussion. You 
will not know how much religion profiteth till you 
have left this seat <^ ^cience, till you have visited 
the abodes of sorrow, nil you have stood by the pil- 
low of the dying. What am I saying? You will 
not know this till you have made the grand decisive 
experiment yourselves ; explored the grave in person, 
and from the dread solemnities of the judgment-day 
received instruction. Were the secrets of that great 
day made manifest — and made manifest they shortly 
will be — there would exist but one opinion on this 
subject. Revelation, even now, gives an anticipated 
view of those scenes, both of transport and of ter- 
ror, which the natural eye sees not. In its light I 
beseech, I adjure you ; and, ere you enter on the 
world, make up your mind, and with God, and heav- 
en, and hell, and judgment, and eternity before your 
eyes, decide for yourselves, whether it be not better 
to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to 
enjoy the delusive, degrading, damning pleasures of 
sin for a season ; and as you decide, so act. Time 
is short, eternity is at stake, and the moments are on 
the wing that will decide your fate for ever. 

Oh, God ! look down with pitying eye on this 
group of beings now to be dispersed ; and, where- 
soever they may wander, so guide their inexperi- 
enced steps that they may meet in heaven. Do 
this for the Redeemer's sake, and to thy great name 
shall be the glory. 



THE FLOW OF TIME. 159 



X. 



aELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING BEFORE COMMENCE- 
MENT, 1814. 

Instability of all earthly Things. — Motives to early Piety.— 
Filial Love and Gratitude. — Parental Affection. — Anxiety of 
Parents to promote the Happiness of their Children.— Chris- 
tian Parents. — Instructions of Solomon. — Early Piety inter- 
esting in itself. — Leads to Happiness. — Joy of Christian Pa- 
rents in pious Children, in Life and in Death.— Example of a 
pious Child. — The Good on Earth and the Angels in Heaven 
rejoice over Souls converted from Sin to Righteousness. — 
Union of Parents and Children in Heaven.] 

There is something awfully impressive in the 
rapid and perpetual flow of time. To eternity this 
stream is ever tending, like a river to the ocean. 
Individuals, families, nations float upon its surface, 
and are borne away and lost in that absorbing gulf, 
whose dimensions no eye can measure, and on 
whose misty surface no wreck is seen. 

Nothing here is stable, nothing permanent. The 
noblest specimens of genius, the proudest monu- 
ments of art fade, decay, and disappear. 

Even society itself continues only by succession. 
The species is preserved, but the individual perishes. 
The relations of parent and child, of brother and 
sister, of neighbour and friend, are indeed perpetual. 
Not so the persons who sustain those relations. 
They were, but they are seen no more ! Transient 
as the cloud on which the sunbeam of the morning 
played has been the glory of the preceding age, nor 



160 SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS. 

. ,^ will that of the present or of the following be more 

I abiding. All the virtue and talents, all the goodness 

and greatness that now exalt and adorn society, will 

soon vanish from the sight, nor leave a trace behind. 

To a reflecting mind there is something deeply 
affecting in this idea. Life is naturally dear to us ; 
we cling instinctively to the passing scene ; but we 
cannot even check, much less arrest its flight and 
ensure its perpetuity. For us a shroud is weaving, 
for us the bed of death is spread. The grave waits 
to receive our ashes, and the church bell will soon 
have tolled our funeral knell. As individuals, we 
must die, nor can we continue to live upon the earth 
except in our successors. That, indeed, is only an 
ideal life ; but still the thought of it is precious. 

Were the race of men to become extinct when 
we ourselves expire, the darkness of death would 
appear still more dark ; more desolate the desolation 
of the tomb. Standing on the verge of that abyss 
which has swallowed up our ancestors, and in which 
we ourselves are about to be ingulfed, how grateful 
is the idea that to us also there will be successors ; 
and that whatever of learning, of virtue, and of piety 
the living world possesses, will survive us, and be 
perpetuated by those who will constitute posterity. 

We ourselves must quit this theatre of action and 
of interest. We must resign our places of respon- 
sibility and of usefulness. The time will soon have 
arrived when, for our friends, for our country, for the 
church, for the world, we can do nothing more. 
Both the opportunity and the ability of effecting 
good and of effecting evil will be transferred to other 



SYMPATHIES OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 161 

hands. Jiow solicitous should we be, then, to im- 
prove the virtues, to correct the vices, and to fix the 
habits of those to whom, under God, are to be in- 
trusted the future destinies of mankind ] 

The motives to early piety are too numerous to 
be presented in an address like this. In the most 
elaborate discussion a selection would be necessary ; 
and even then, on the topics selected much would 
remain unsaid. Among these motives is ^/ta/ gral- 
iiude, on which I am about to insist this evening. 

The sympathies subsisting between parents and 
children are reciprocal, and in nothing are the wis- 
dom and goodness of God more manifest than in 
the bestowment of those sympathies, which, like so 
many ligaments, bind in perpetual amity those groups 
of beings, who, dwelling beneath the same roof, con- 
stitute the family. 

The parent naturally commiserates his infant 
child ; the child early feels a glow of affection to- 
wards his provident and attentive parent ; these mu- 
tual sympathies are strengthened by indulgence ; and 
from their habitual exercise springs no inconsider- 
able part of the bliss of life. Cold and comfortless 
indeed would human intercourse become, if paternal, 
filial, and fraternal affection were suspended. Not 
all the pomp and pageantry of courts, not all the 
formal and studied courtesies of fashion, could com- 
pensate for the loss of that heaven-appointed solace, 
iomestic friendship. Beneath the paternal roof dis- 
guise is banished, and heart meets heart in amity : 
iiere nature operates, and there, and only there, man 
peaks and acts without dissimulation. 
N 



162 DESIGN OF THESE SYMPATHIES. 

Partial, however, would be our view of Provi- 
dence, did we consider these sympathies as if im- 
planted merely to solace human misery and sweeten 
human intercourse. True, indeed, they do serve to 
tranquillize our passions, to soften our asperity, and 
to compensate at home for that tasteless, shallow 
courtesy practised on us abroad with unmeaning as- 
siduity by those trained to the deceptive arts of a 
faithless, fashionable world. 

But they have still a higher office. Time is the 
commencement of eternity. To the due perform- 
ance of these duties, filial and parental sympathies 
are alike conducive. The one sweetens all the 
cares and sofiens all the sorrows incident to the 
nurturing of children. More than this : it secures, 
or, at least, tends to secure the exercise of those 
cares and the patient endurance of those sorrows. 
That man should not desert his infant offspring like 
the ostrich, that lays and forsakes her eggs upon 
the sand, his Creator has bound him to that offspring 
by ties which he cannot sunder without doing vio- 
lence to his nature and ceasing to be man. The 
other sweetens submission, and renders even a state 
of tutelage not only supportable, but pleasant.. 
More than this : love to parents often prompts to 
the endurance of restraints, to the practice of vir- 
tues, and to the formation of correct habits at a pe- 
riod when, to a thoughdess youth, no other motive 
would be availing. To this cause may be attributed 
much of that decency and decorum of manners 
which are usually observable in well-regulated fam- 
ilies even among children naturally the most friv 
olous and wayward- 



FILIAL LOVE AND LOVE OF GOD. 163 

But the Christiaa moralist is not satisfied with 
mere decency and decorum. It behooves him, 
therefore, to co-operate with the Deity in his benev- 
olent intentions ; and, seizing on juvenile tender- 
ness and filial aflJection, to endeavour to direct their 
influence to the accomplishment of the high purposes 
of revealed religion. When, amid the levity and 
thoughtlessness of youth, other motives prove una- 
vailing, it becomes him to touch that string which 
for ever vibrates, and to constrain, if it be possible to 
constrain, to the love of God by the love of parents. 
And why may it not be possible ? Why may not 
affection, as well as any other natural endowment, 
be sanctified ; and thus the whole heart, through 
this as a medium of operation, by the efficiency of 
the spirit, be regenerated unto righteousness ? 

Nothmg on earth is dearer to a parent than the 
happiness of his children ; nor is anything more 
grateful to a dutiful child than to contribute to a 
parent's joy. And to a Christian parent, what joy 
can be compared to that which spraigs from seeing 
his children progressive in the path of righteousness, 
and adorning, by deeds of early faith and charity, 
the doctrines of God their Saviour 1 

To have been born and educated in a Christian 
land is the honour and privilege of the youth I now 
address. Some of you, I trust, have the still high- 
er honour of being descended from parents who are 
Christians indeed : parents who bore you in their 
irms to the altar of your God in infancy, imploring 
en you his paternal benediction ; and who, during 
your riper years, have never ceased to intercede in 



164 INSTRUCTIONS OF SOLOMON 

your behalf, when presenting their evening and morn- 
ing supplication before the mercy seat : parents 
whose waking hours have been occupied with your 
wants, and in whose very dreams has mingled con- 
cern for your salvation. 

Long as you may have been ungrateful to God, 
to your parents you have never ceased to be grateful. 
Though cold and callous to the love of Jesus, your 
hearts are yet susceptible of filial love. Though 
grace has never quickened you, nature has not yet 
become extinct. Dear is the name of parent, dear 
a father's counsel, dear a mother's care. In their 
welfare you feel an interest. You wish them bless- 
ed : wish that the evening of their days may be se- 
rene and cloudless, and that their gray hairs may 
ultimately descend, not with sorrow, but with joy to 
the grave. And do you really and from your hearts 
desire thisl Does the idea of a provident father, 
of a vigilant and tender mother, excite aught of in- 
terest in your bosoms ? Then, by the kindness they 
have manifested, by the anxieties they have felt and 
still feel. I adjure you to do homage to the Saviour 
whom they honour, and consecrate the first years of 
your being to the God whom they serve. 

Solomon, that sagacious king of Israel, urges this 
motive with force and frequency. The relation 
which subsists between a parent and a child is in- 
troduced repeatedly, to give effect to those lessons 
of instruction imbodied in his proverbs. When the 
rising generation are addressed, the majesty of the 
king is merged in the tenderness of the parent. 
Then, not the monarch, but the father speaks ; and 
how tender and affecting are his words. 






EARLY PIETY INTERESTING IN ITSELF. 165 

My son, hear the instruction of a father, andfor^ 
sake not the law of thy mother, JMy son, if sinners 
entice thee, consent thou not. Hear, ye children, the 
instruction of a father ; for I give you good coun- 
sel, forsahe not my law. He urges the interest 
which parents take in the well-being of their chil- 
dren, and describes in expressive terms the joy 
which their virtues excite, and the anguish which 
their vices occasion. *^ wise son, he says, maketh 
a glad father; but a foolish son is the heaviness 
of his mother. The same idea is elsewhere ex- 
pressed, and in terms equally significant and appro- 
priate. Children's children are the crown of old 
men, and the glory of children are their fathers ; but 
a foolish son is grief unto his father, and bitterness 
to her that bare him. 

In whatever situation we contemplate the parent 
and the child, the truth of the positions assumed by 
Solomon will be apparent. In life and in death, 
with equal justice may it be said that a wise son 

MAKETH A GLAD FATHER. 

In LIFE. — Early piety is in itself an ob- 
ject OF INTEREST. What a delightful spectacle is 
a family of docile and dutiful children living in ami- 
ty ; increasing in knowledge and in virtue as they 
increase in stature, and destined, after having adorned 
the earth, to be transplanted to the heavens. Be- 
hold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for 
brethren to dwell together in unity ; it is as the dew 
of Hermon, and as the dew that descendeth upon the 
mountains of Zion,. 

Early piety is in its effects cond^tcive to 



166 EARLY PIETY CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS. 

HAPPiNRSs. The work of righteousness shall be 
peace^ and the effect of righteousness, quietness and 
assurance for ever, saith Isaiah ; a predjction veri- 
fied by the experience of every Christian family in 
which charity is the bond of union; in which re- 
ciprocal afft-ction reigns, and filial and fraternal du- 
ties are alike the business and the delight of life. 
How worthy of emulation is the condition of such a 
family ! How pre-eminently blessed that parent 
whom God has placed at the head of it ! All his 
joys are heightened, ail his pains mitigated, and the 
most wearisome hours of his life are beguiled by the 
affection, the constancy, the cheerfulness, and the 
piety of those around him. Time thus occupied 
passes pleasantly away, and even eternity itself ap- 
pears more rapturous in the contemplation, being 
heightened by the prospect not only of his own sal- 
vation, but that of his household. 

To the parent thus highly favoured of the Lord, 
this is the consummation of sublunary joy. It is a 
joy already tinctured with the spirit of the heavens, 
and partaking of the tranquillity of the life to come. 
Even desire itself has ceased, because it is satisfied. 
It was not that his children might shine in honour or 
riot in wealth that he nurtured them with so mu»ch 
care, and supplicated for them with so much earnest- 
ness. Their salvation, more than any other con- 
cern, occupied his mind and pressed on his heart. 
Their salvation God has granted ; of which their 
faith, and patience, and their labours of love are at 
once an evidence and a pledge. And this having 
been granted, desire ceases, and the cup of domestic 



JOY OF PARENTS IN PIOUS CHILDREN. 167 

bliss is full. Desire ceases because its chief object 
is obtained ; and because, moreover, the Christian 
parent knows, that to them who have sought first 
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all ne- 
cessary good will be added thereunto. He knovvs 
that, whether his offspring, on whom such early 
grace has been bestowed, are destined to live in the 
obscurity of cottages or m tfee splendour of courts ; 
wherher they are appointed to turn the furrows of 
the field or to labour in the details of the work- 
shop ; whether they shall be called to preside in the 
counsels of the senate chamber, to fight the battles of 
their country in the field, or to defend, at the stake or 
on the scaffold, the faith once delivered to the saints, 
everywhere the God whom they have chosen and 
whom they serve will be with them, and qualify them 
for the duties, whether of action or of suffering, 
which, in their passage to glory, they shall be required 
to perform. 

In death, a wise son maketh a glad father: a 
truth equally obvious, whether we consider the death 
of the parent or of the child. 

Of the parent. — If there be an idea which, 
more than any other, aggravates to a parent the dread 
of death, it is that of separation from his children. 
And yet even this idea, so full of anguish to the dy- 
ing Christian, is also full of consolation. For, even 
in death, the pious children which he leaves behind 
him are his hope, his joy, and the crown of his re- 
joicing. Many a rapturous thought mingles in that 
melancholy train w-hich at this momentous crisis 
occupies his rriind. 



168 PARTING BLESSING OF PIOUS PARENTS. 

Do the anticipated ills of orphanage present them- 
selves to his view? He remembers who it was 
that said, Leave your fatherless children with me^ 
I will provide for them^ and lei your widows trust in 
God, He feels that they cannot be accounted fa- 
therless to whom God has become a father; nor 
destitute to whom an inheritance is bequeathed in 
heaven. The promises of the covenant occur to 
him, and he reposes his confidence upon the faithful- 
ness of God. Yain, profligate young man, dost thou 
require a proof of the truth which is here asserted ? 
Leave then thy banquet, and visit yonder habitation 
of expiring virtue, and thou shalt see with what tran- 
quillity the parent of a pious offspring can leave the 
world. Dost thou sneer at the idea 1 Beware : 
that sneer may be the sneer of death unto thy soul. 

But what proof of the truth which has been incul- 
cated can yonder habitation of expiring virtue affcrd? 
Oh that I could faithfully exhibit to thy view the 
venerable father, like the dying patriarch, assem- 
bling his household to receive his benediction : a 
benediction which contains the only patrimony he is 
able to bestow. Enviable patrimony : the blessing ol 
a dying and of a pious parent ! More to be desired 
than all the gold that misers ever counted, than all the 
crowns that tyrants have bestowed. Oh that I could 
imitate the strain of heavenly eloquence in which he 
addresses the weeping auditors who stay his pillow 
and hang upon his lips. " Persevere, my children," 
he says, " persevere in the course on which yoi> 
have entered ; be faithful to the Saviour you have 
chosen, and continue to reverence the God of ycui 



DEATH OF CHILDREN. 169 

youth, and I assure you, by the peace I now feel, 
by the joys I now anticipate, that, when you are old 
and gray-headed. He will not forsake you." Then, 
raising his eyes to heaven, he adds, " There I ap- 
point to meet you ; that, approaching the throne of 
mercy, and presenting you, my children, to my Sav- 
iour, I may say, Lord, here ara /, and those ivhich 
thou hast given me." Here his voice falters ; he 
smiles adieu, and the serenity of heaven beams from 
his countenance, as he closes his eyes upon this 
world, and in faith resigns up his spirit. Oh death, 
where here was thy sting! Oh grave, where thy 
victory ! 

Of the child. — It is not according to seniority 
that the king of terrors selects his victims. Often 
does the disconsolate mother weave her daughter's 
shroud, and often the bereaved father plants the cy- 
press beside the tombstone of his sons. Even 
these sad services the parents of a pious offspring 
perform not without consolation, because they are 
performed not without hope. 

Parental love seeks not its own, but the felicity of 
its object. Whatever loss it may be to the parent, 
to the pious child it is gain to die ; and the more so 
the earlier he is called to do this. He who tempers 
the breeze to the shorn lamb, often takes away the 
children of his grace from the evil to come. At 
death the race ceases, the combat ceases, and joy 
is consummated. Disease no longer preys upon 
their bodies ; no longer temptation assails their vir- 
tue. Hitherto they have been sinners on the earth ; 
henceforth t?.iey will be saints in heaven. Before 
O 



170 DEATH OF CHILDREN, 

they were associated with men ; now they have be 
come copfipanions of angels. 

To have borne and nurtured children for the 
skies ; to have seen them, even during their state 
of tutelage, accounted worthy to be transplanted 
there — what consoling, what triumphant reflections 
are these to a bereaved parent ! True, he no long- 
er enjoys the solace of their company. Their seat is 
vacant at his table ; it is vacant at the fireside ; it 
is vacant at the altar. A thousand afflicting inci- 
dents remind him that they are gone. But, as often 
as this saddening thought recurs, it is softened and 
transformed by the cheering recollection that they 
are gone to glory. And, because they are gone to 
glory, the pang of separation is forgotten, and the full 
heart, almost disburdened of its sorrow, responds to 
the song of holy resignation : 

*« Why should we mourn departed friends, 
Or start at death's alarms ? 
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends 
To call us to his arms." 

Delightful idea ! Supported by this, I have seen 
the parents of a much-endeared child sitting with 
composure beside his bed of death. They were 
parents familiarized with sorrow. Once they had 
been blessed with an ample fortune and a numerous 
offspring. But the hand of God had been upon 
them. Stripped of the one, bereaved of the other, 
they were left in the decline of life naked and de- 
fenceless, like the trunk of an aged oak, whose 
leaves and branches have been swept away by the 
pitiless storms that have beat upon it. One little son. 



DEATH OF CHILDREN. 171 

!he child of their old age, alone remained to them. 
His brethren and sisters were dead, and in his life 
the life of his parents was bound up. Hitherto they 
had considered this son as a special gift of Provi- 
dence, granted to solace their sorrows in age, to 
minister to their wants in death, and afterward to 
preserve their name and become their memorial 
among the living. He was, indeed, a lovely child ; 
and what rendered him the more so in the eyes of 
his godly parents was, that he also feared God. 
Often, as he hung upon his mother's arm, or clam- 
bering his father's knee and stroking back his gray 
hairs, he would inquire of them so earnestly about 
death, and talk to them so sweetly about heaven and 
Jesus, that their hearts were overcome, and their 
lips had not the power of utterance. 

Thus did this child increase in wisdom as he in- 
creased in stature : till on a day, like the child of 
the Shunamite, he cried out, JWy head, my head! 
Like that child, too, he was carried from the field 
unto his mother. But, alas ! no prophet of Israel 
was nigh. No swift Gehazi ran from Carmel to 
lay the staff of the holy seer upon the face of the 
child. It was, indeed, a sickness unto death. His 
soul, however, was resigned ; his faith in the prom- 
ises immovable. " Do not grieve thus," said he to 
his aged parents, as they watched the changes of his 
countenance, and in pensive silence bedewed his pil- 
low with their tears ; " God will take care of you, and 
he will take care of me too. My body will be laid 
in the grave, where the body of my Saviour was laid. 
My soul will fly up to hea^ en, where I shall see my 



172 FILIAL GRATITUDE OF RUTH. 

brothers and sisters, and Jesus Christ, and the an* 
gels who attend him. Have you not often told me 
that he is the friend of children ? I have read, too, 
how he took them in his arms on earth, and I am 
sure he will bid them welcome to his arms in heav- 
en." Thus early ripe for glory, this dear child, 
without a murmur and without a groan, drew his last 
breath, and fell asleep in Jesus. I saw, indeed, 
that his parents wept ; but their tears were tears of 
joy. Happy, thrice happy parents, called to com- 
mit such precious dust unto the sepulchre, and to re- 
sign a spirit thus ripe for glory, unto God who gave it. 

What a powerful motive to youthful piety does 
this address unfold 1 Oh that I v/ere able duly to 
enforce it ! Oh that I were able to revive in your 
minds the recollection of those numerous incidents 
by which parental kindness has been evinced, that 
unwearied care that guarded your wayward steps, 
that sleepless vigilance that watched the slumber of 
your cradle ! 

Do you not feel the obligation you are under to 
your parents ? Do you not wish to make requital ? 
Then break off' your sins by repentance, and by 
faith make your peace with God. You remember 
how the filial gratitude of Ruth the Moabitess evin- 
ced itself towards the widowed Naomi. "The 
Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death 
part thee and me. For whither thou goest I will 
go. and where thou lodgest I will lodge : thy people," 
mark these emphatic words, " thy people shall be 
my people, and thy God my God. Where thou 
diest I m\\ die, and there will I be buried." Lovely 



EXHORTATION TO EARLY PIETY. 173 

Moabitess, thy vow is accepted, and thy faith shall 
save thee : thy posterity shall be numbered atnong 
the hneage of Jacob for the choice which thou didst 
make, and the spirit thou didst show evinces that 
thou wert worthy to become for ever the daughter 
of a mother in Israel. 

Ah 1 would the youth who hear me — youth born 
and nurtured, not in Moab, but in Zion — make the 
same wise choice, what joy would it light up in many 
a heart in this assembly? How would that aged 
father exult to hear his sons openly declare for Jesus ; 
and what raptures would thrill the bosom of that 
widowed mother, as her eye caught the first symp- 
toms of contrition in that little group of beings that 
surround her, covered with those weeds which are 
at once a symbol of orphanage and a memorial of 
the dead. Yes, children, piety in you is lustre to a 
father's eye ; it is balm to a mother's heart ; it sooths 
the inquietudes of age ; it mitigates the pains of sick- 
ness ; it softens the gloom of adversity, and extracts 
more than half the anguish of the pang of death. 

It was for this high purpose, that you should join 
yourselves unto the Lord, that they educated you 
with so much care, that they nurtured you with so 
much kindness. To Jesus Christ they have given 
you, his they have ever considered you ; it was in his 
behalf that, with so many prayers and tears, they 
have fulfilled the duties of the parental office. Nor 
will they ever be relieved from the dread of failure, 
that burden which still oppresses them, till you ratify 
their vow, and by an act of faith give yourselves to 
Jesus. Nothing short of this — no other act can 



174 EXHORTATION TO EARLY PIETY. 

free j^our souls from the guilt of abusing parental 
kindness, because no other act makes requital for 
that kindness, and cancels the debt of gratitude 
which it imposes. And this does cancel it : in the 
eye of God, and in the eye of those who nursed 
and nurtured you, it cancels it. All this, and still 
more would they have done, and done cheerfully, for 
the sake of swelling Emanuel's retinue, and adding 
to the number of those who shall wear in heaven his 
livery. 

" Oh that I were able,-' methinks I hear some sor- 
row-wounded heart exclaim, " oh that I were able 
to call back from sepulchral ashes the spirits of my 
parents. Could I do this, I would pour my tears into 
their bosoms if thus I might wash away the re- 
membrance of those crimes of mine which disturbed 
their lives, and imbittered even their bed of death." 
Returning penitent, it is not at the sepulchre, but at 
the altar, tiriat thou shalt do this. That marble tomb 
contains not the sainted spirits of those pious pa- 
rents whom thy sins have grieved. They are either 
praising God in heaven, or sent from thence to ex- 
ecute some office of good-will to man. Perhaps 
they are even now thy guardian angels, commission- 
ed to watch thy orphan steps by day, and to guard 
by night thy orphan slumbers. Be they where they 
may, thy return to God will not long remain unknown 
to them ; nor will it less occasion joy because they 
have gone before thee into glory. There, in ecstasy 
they will receive the welcome tidings, or pei'haps 
themselves will be the bearers of those tidmgs, 
shouting as they ascend, " Grace hath reclaimed 



EXHORTATION TO EARLY PIETY. 175 

another wanderer, and brought home to Jesus a 
child of ours !" Every redeemed spirit sympathizes 
in their joy, and every angel sti'ikes on his goidea 
harp with a bolder hand the deep-toned hallelujah, 
because an immortal soul was dUad and is alive again^ 
was lost and is found. 

And well may the angels do this. The recovery 
of a soul from sin to righteousness is a splendid 
event. What a range of progressive glory opens 
before the young immortal ; and what a train of rap- 
turous ideas must spring up in celestial minds, as 
they see the heaven-bound pilgrim taking the incep- 
tive step in that upward way that will conduct him 
thither ! They know the issue ; and, because they 
know it, dwell with ecstasy upon the grov/ing num- 
ber which the church on earth is nurturing up to fill 
their own thinned ranks and repeople their native 
mansions : mansions which, ere our race was made, 
sin had invaded, and apostacy from God depopulated. 

But not the angels only — all other virtuous beings, 
the wise and the good of all nations, sympathize with 
your parents in their joy. Everywhere young con- 
verts awaken peculiar interest, because they add pe- 
culiar beauty to the church, which is God's moral 
husbandry. In this arid world, every spot of moral 
verdure attracts the eye. Especially does the ver- 
dure of the springtime of life attract it. We love 
to contemplate these young loilloivs by the waters 
courses; pleasant trees^ the planting of the Lord, 
The sun of righteousness shines benignly on them 
with his beams ; the showers of grace water their 
tender branches, which already bud and blossom for 



176 EXHORTATION TO EARLY PIETY. 

the skies. Oh ! how unlike those aged and barren 
trunks, which only encumber and deform the vine- 
yard ; and which, because they encumber and de- 
form it, are doomed to destruction ; and the axe 
and the fire become their portion. 

Thus the angels of God, the saints in glory, and 
the church on earth, partake in that pulse of joy which 
dilates the parent's heart when his offspring incline 
to wisdom. Nor least, nor last,^ beloved pupils, 
does your Alma Mater partake in this. Ye also 
are her joy and the crovi^n of her rejoicing. It is 
not the ignorant, the idle, or the profligate that she 
numbers among her blessings. These are names 
that pollute her records, and are spots in her feasts 
of love. She v/ishes to be known only as the guar- 
dian of youtht^ul wisdom, the patroness of talents 
consecrated to God. In all your future plans of 
usefulness she will take an interest. She will de- 
light to see this dim scene of earthly glory brighten 
as you enter on it. To see vice everywhere, awe- 
smitten by the dignity of your demeanour, hide its 
deformed head ; and oppressed virtue, beneath your 
auspices, look up and triumph : to see the whole 
force of your example given unto righteousness, and 
the whole vigour of your minds directed to the rear 
ing up of some monument for God. 

In the hope of this requital it was that she open- 
ed to you her halls of science ; that she delivered to 
you her lectures of instruction, and that she offered 
up, and still offers up, her evening and her morning 
prayers before the altar. And will you disappoint 
her hopes 1 Ah ! in her paternal eye, what a glori* 



JOYFUL MEETING IN HEAVEN. 177 

ous spectacle would it^ be to see the youth she had 
nurtured, clad in celestial panoply, everywhere 
breasting the storm, and breaking those bars of er- 
ror and delusion which apostacy *' has flung across 
man's obstructed way" to glory. 

Seeing then, beloved youth, that ye are compass- 
ed about by such a cloud of witnesses, be entreated 
to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth 
most easily beset you, and to run with patience the 
race set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author 
and finisher of our faith ; who, for the joy that was 
set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, 
and is now set doivn at the right hand of God, So 
even ye, if ye overcome, shall set down with Christ 
on his throne ; even as he, having overcome, has set 
down with his Father on his throne. 

What a glorious jubilee are pious children at once 
preparing for themselves and for their parents. Oh 
that I were able to direct your eye to those favoured 
groups of beings, which in yonder heavens grace will 
have brought together ! Each redeemed child which 
the parent numbers in those realms of glory, will be 
by him accounted a distinct pledge of his Creator's 
goodness, an additional monument of his Saviour's 
mercy. 

With what emotions will Abraham recognise 
among the multitude of the saved that beloved 
Isaac, whom, when a lad, with so many gloomy 
thoughts he led towards the altar upon one of the 
mountains of Moriah ! With what emotions will 
Isaac there recognise that Jacob, whom his eyes, 
through dimness, saw not, when he came bringing 



178 THE GRACE OF GOD INVOKED. 

savoury meat, and to receive his paternal blessing ! 
And how will Jacob exult, when, presenting his off- 
spring before his Saviour, he finds himself surround- 
ed by the twelve patriarchs — all the heads of the 
tribes of Israel ! 

Nor less the joy of every other parent, who, miss- 
ing no member of his household, dares to say, as he 
stands amid the convocation of the righteous, '* Here, 
Lord, am I, and of ail the children thou hast given 
me have I lost none." 

Remember, ye youth who hear me, that it is only 
your impiety that can deprive your pious parents of 
such an honour, and prevent the bliss of such a 
meeting. 

Great God ! interpose by thy grace, and avert 
from our children the awful doom of final separation 
from thy people ; and to thy name shall be the glory 
iii Christ. Amen 



I 



THE APOSTACy. 179 



XI. 



[Effects of the Apostacy. — Man vainly seeks for Happiness in 
Riches — in Power — in Wisdom. — Man's boasted Wisdom 
considered— ill the Philosophy of Mind — in the Philosophy of 
Matter. — Chymistry. — The Microscope— Astronomy. — The 
Telescope. — The Fixed Stars. — True Wisdom consists in the 
Knowledge of God. — Pagan and Christian Theology, in their 
Character and Effects, compared. — The Bible the source ol 
the most precious Knowledge. — To be truly Wise is to under- 
stand the great Truths which it reveals, and comply with its 
Requirements.] 

On the morning of man's creation, the first object 
that met his eye was the God who formed him. If, 
with a sentiment of personal consequence, he then 
raised himself from his bed of dust, it was the dig- 
nity of his parentage that prompted that sentiment. 
He felt upon his heart, as it throbbed with life and 
gratitude, the ligament that bound him to a stable 
and an eternal throne. Little in himself, he was 
great as the ofispring of the Almighty ; and weak in 
himself, he was strong in God's strength. 

Not so striking or so mournful was the change in 
Eden, when its flowers fell withered to the earth 
beneath the curse that smote it, as was the change in 
man, who, till now, had continued his song of praise 
and worn his robe of innocence. But when he de- 
serted God he was deserted of him, and the decay 
of all his moral habits gave evidence of that deser- 
tion. Thenceforward his tone of feeling and his 
type of character were assimilated to those of the 
fell spirits, wandering from their prison, with whom 



180 PRIDE OF UICHES. 

he had become associated and joined in interests. 
The ties of filial affection broke bleeding from their 
hold ; the aspirations of filial love ceased ; even de- 
votion ceased ; nor did any inward sentiment lift up 
his soul towards the Author of his being. Bewil- 
dered amid the mazes and benighted by the darkness 
of his own depravity, on which ever side he turned 
him, the glories of the Godhead had faded from his 
eye, and the very recollections of his mercy were 
passmg from his memory. 

The desire of happiness remained ; but it had lost 
its object, and a mighty void was felt in the bosom 
which hitherto God had filled. A substitute was 
sought. A substitute has been found, as the sinner 
fancies, in each successive object which excites his 
concupiscence ; but all of them alike, in the end, 
fling back his hope unsatisfied, and only mock by 
disappointment his idolatrous devotion. 

Sometimes it is riches that supplant God, and 
the sinner's heart fills with covetous desires. Ava- 
rice becomes the ruling passion; and in place of the 
man, erect in posture and vi^ith an eye directed to 
the heavens, the miser appears, inclined to the earth, 
picking from the kennel each shining particle, eking 
out his freehold by usurious purchases, or piling 
away in coffers, on which mammon has been stamped, 
his worshipped treasures. It was covetousness 
that destroyed Ahab ; it was rirhes that beguiled 
Croesus : since whose times there has lived un- 
blessed, and died unwept, a race of wretches still 
more mean and more mercenary, concerning whom 
there is only this memorial left on earth, that their 
God was gold. 



PRIDE OF POWER AND WISDOM. 181 

Sometimes it is might that supplants God : when 
a little creature, a few feet high and a few years old, 
may be seen walking in the pride of his strength 
and indulging in a dream of his independence. 
That haughty son of Anak, whom the sUng of David 
humbled while in the act of his proud defiance, is 
not the only individual who has been the dupe of 
this illusion. It was in might that Nimrod gloried, 
that Belus gloried, together with those later and 
fiercer conquerors who wielded the Grecian phalanx, 
who prompted the movement and smote with the 
arm of the Roman legion : men who left, even in 
the eye of posterity, their bloody track upon the 
herbage of the valley and the glaciers of the mount- 
ains ; who indicated the place of their encampment 
by the desolation which surrounded it, and lit up the 
whole line of their march to hell by the fires of one 
great, frightful, continuous funeral pile. 

Sometimes it is wisdom that supplants God : 
when a creature, religious by the very constitution 
of his nature, is seen giving those hours to study 
which belong to devotion, and those afl^ections to 
knowledge which are a tribute due to goodness. It 
is among this group of intellectual idolators that we 
recognise the names of Ptolemy, of Archimedes, of 
Aristotle, of Plato, together with that lengthened cat- 
alogue of Athenian sages, by the fire of whose ge- 
nius we enkindle our own, and in the light of whose 
intellect Athens is still visible at the distance of so 
many generations. And if there were anything but 
God in which it were rightful for man to glory, it 
should seem that wisdom were that thing. Its love 

Q, 



182 PRIDE OF WISDOM. 

is not sordid like the love of riches ; it is not cru^ 
like that of power. The groves of the Academy 
are tranquil, its pursuits are peaceful : alas ! that 
they are not always holy. 

For years you have joined in those vigils which 
are kept beside the quenchless lamp that philosophy 
hath kindled ; and high in hope, and decked with 
classic honours, you are about to enter on the world. 
At such a moment, how chilling to youthful ardour, 
to literary enterprise, is the rebuke that meets you 

.\ at the very threshold : " Let not the ivise man glory 

p in his ivisdom.^^ 

J So spake not Socrates, so spake not Seneca, so 
spake not Cicero. The lecture-room conveyed no 
such counsel, the Lyceum contained no such oracle. 
^ 1 No, it did not : this is not the language of Athens, 
but of Zion. We are not now among the groves of 
the Academy, we are not beside the seat of the 
Muses. Here, it is not the harp of Orpheus, but 
of David, that is struck, and the song it breathes is 
not in the manner of Homer or of Hesiod, but of 
Isaiah and Habakkuk. We are associated with the 
disciples of a Christian school ; we have entered 
the vestibule of a Christian temple, where all that is 
splendid in intellect, as well as all that is splendid in 

. fortune, is eclipsed by the intenser splendours of 
C\ righteousness. * 

Never was counsel more timely or more pertinent 
than that which is now addressed to you from the 
hill of Zion, and by the lips of a prophet of the Lord, 
Let not the ivise man glory in his wisdom. 

And why should the wise man glory in his wis- 



PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 18'^ 

dom ? After all the ostentatious eulogy that grace- 
less learning, that unbaptized philosophy has bestow- 
ed on itself, what is there thai should make a reli- 
gious being, a being of moral capacities, glory in it ? 
After all the enlargement of modern discovery, and 
sublime as the march of genius is said to have been 
during the last centuries of the six thousand years 
that have passed away, has the wisdom of the schools 
become either so clear in its views, so vast in 

ITS REACH, or SO SUBLIME AND SPIRITUAL IN ITS 

NATURE, as to entitle it to such high distinction ? 

Has IT BECOME so CLEAR IN ITS VIEWS, SO VAST 

IN ITS REACH ? Or, rather, does not human intel- 
lect, bewildered amid a mighty maze, and met and 
mocked at every turn with mystery, still look with 
weak, and wavering, and tremulous perception on a 
little span only; a mere hand's breadth, taken be- 
side those bold and interminable lines of wisdom, 
the direction of which is so soon hidden in the dis- 
tance which they run upon the great, measureless, 
Mntravelled map of infinite intelligence ? Is it not 
even so ? I put it to your own experience. You 
have passed your examinations in the lecture-room : 
take your last in the sanctuary and at the altar of 
your God. 

Is it in the philosophy of mind that your wisdom 
is so clear and comprehensive ? You have studied 
the philosophy of mind ; you have noticed and named 
the more obvious acts of the soul within you and of 
the souls around you. Have you done more than j 
this? If so, with all that more, can you inform me 
li^hat the soul within you is ? or what the tie that 



184 PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 

unites it to the body on which it acts, and by which 
it is acted on so wondrously ? Whence that waking 
and that sleeping state it assumes alternately ; those 
bewildering dreams that characterize the one, and 
the more orderly perceptions that predominate in the 
other ? How do its volitions arise ? How is its 
train of thought kept up ? Or how, blind to the future 
as it is, does memory bring back with such acknowl* 
edge accuracy the past ? Can you answer these in- 
quiries ? You know you cannot : nor can youi 
teachers answer ihem. Such knowledge is too won 
derful for us. Does glorying in it, then, befit you 1 
David did not think so, when, struck by the sublime 
incomprehensibility of his own mysterious being, he 
uttered that humble and heartfelt note of homage, 
/ ivill praise thee^for I am fearfully and wonderfully 
made. 

I pass to the souls of others. Take those with 
which you are most familiar; the members of the 
families in which you have resided ; the companions 
with whom you have associated ; the class with 
which you have so often met. To say nothing of 
that great world of spirits above you and around you, 
do you understand and can you explain what pass- 
es within even this narrow limit ; this bird's-eye 
field of vision ? The eccentricity of taste, the pe- 
xuliarity of temper, the diversity of talent, the variety 
of opinion, the secret motive of action, the sudden 
change of purpose, the transformation of habits, the 
revolution of character, the communication of feel- 
mg, the contagion of passion, together with all those 
varieties of action and reaction with which related 



CHYMISTRY. 185 

beings are affected — do you see these things as God 
sees them ? Or, rather, do not mysteries meet you 
at every step, and rests there not even on this select 
and frequented field, and on every pait of it, a veil 
which no arm can lift, no eye but the Omniscient 
penetrate ? 

Is it, then^ in the philosophy of matter that your 
wisdom is clear and compr el tensive ? 

In chymistry there have been recent and great dis- 
coveries. With these you have become acquainted. 
You hMve faiiiiliarized yourselves with tables of chym- 
ical affinity ; you have learned the names and be- 
come acquainted with the properties of certain agents. 
More than this, you have been within the laboratory, 
seen experiments in analysis and combination, and 
witnessed the action of electricity and of fire. But 
have you, as yet, detected that bidden agency that 
solves the solid in the crucible, or that causes in the 
liquid the elemental movement at the touch of the | 
galvanic pile ? 

You have analyzed the air. Can you tell me why 
it renders percussion audible ? You have separated 
the rays of the solar beam. Can you tell me why 
it renders visible the bodies on which it falls ? You 
have analyzed the devvdrop. Why does it ripen the 
vintage ? You have analyzed the spring shower. 
Why does it refresh ihe herbage, and brighten the : 
verdure on which the eye so sweetly reposes? 

Among all the processes of combination and anal- 
ysis through which you have travelled, is there one 
step in either which you have comprehended ? or did 
you ever discover, in a single instance, that unreveal- 
P 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



ed connexion between your experiment and the re- 
sult ? You have been schooled to little purpose if 
you haVe yet to understand that here, emphatically, 
learning teaches the more effectually " to know how 
little can be known." 

Let us leave these intricacies, these mimic pro- 
cesses of formation, and glance at the simpler and 
the lovelier forms of nature. Here, too, regarding 
only the visible and tangible qualities of bodies, how 
circumscribed is your wisdom ! Even the eye, the 
most excursive organ and the richest source of knowl- 
edge, is confined in its information within humble 
limits. Above, and beneath, and around, there are 
elements too subtile, and bodies too near or too re- 
mote, too large or too minute, to be brought within 
its field of vision. 

But you have surmounted this obstacle to univer- 
sal science. You have remedied the defects of the 
natural eye by the intervention of artificial glasses. 
Still, even this expedient, which extends so wonder- 
fully the range of human knowledge, only renders 
more direct and palpable the evidence of human ig- 
norance. 

Before this expedient was resorted to, the blos- 
som that hung suspended from the fruit-tree was, in 
the eye of man, but a blossom ; nor had it any oth- 
er or higher use than to shelter the tender fruit which 
it enfolded. Now that blossom is seen to be the 
base of a vast and complicated system, and carries 
on its surface, and on every fibre of its surface, the 
ample habitation of many a living creature. Noi 
that blossom only. Every leaf of the forest, every 



ANIMALCULE. 187 

flower of the field, every spear of grass in the valley 
and on the mountain-top, breathes beneath the mi- 
croscopic lens with animation, and teems with life. 
A population as vast, a movement as constant and as 
hurried, and, for aught we know, as full of incident 
and interest, takes place on the surface of every 
ijew world thus brought forth to view from its ob- 
scurity, as takes place on the surface of that world 
the spectator treads on. Other, and still other, and 
yet other compartments are unfolded, and new races 
of beings pass before the eye, as glasses of greater, 
and still greater and greater magnifying powers are 
interposed. Indeed, the farther this downward track 
to nothingness is travelled, the farther seems to 
stretch the still untravelled residue. No glass has 
yet been found of power to reach quite down to 
non-existence. Not even the nether limit of cre- 
ation has been fixed. That line is yet undrawn that 
marks creation's minimum — Jehovah's ne plus ultra. 
After all this reach with artificial means to little- 
ness, that distant unknown point, that barrier to ex- 
istence, still remains to be discovered, beyond whose 
fearful verge the atoms are too small for God to 
organize, the space too narrow for God to work in. 
Beneath us, as around us, all is mystery. There is 
a profound in littleness too vast for man to compass, 
too deep for man to fathom. Even here God's 
counsels are unsearchable, and His ways past find- 
ing out. 

Let us turn, then, to larger masses and bolder 
lines. Astronomy is a more certain science. It is 
so. Still, even here, though there be many a les* 



188 



ASTRONOMY. 



son of humility, there is none of pride written on 
the firmament : at least there is none when read 
from the hill of Zion and in the light of the sanc- 
tuary. For, seen in this light, it is God's glory that 
yonder heavens declare. It is His handiwork which 
that firmament above us showeth forth. Of Him 
only, day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night showeth knowledge. Even a royal observer, 
surveying the heavens which God has made, and 
the moon and the stars which are the work of His 
fingers, uttered, in view of them, only this submissive 
reflection, " Lord^ ivhat is man, that thou art mind- 
ful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest 
him ? But the astronomy of the schools is not the 
astronomy of the sanctuary. To the novice, in- 
structed only in the latter, the earth, fixed and mo- 
tionless, spreads out its ample surface, forming on 
every side the base which supports the arches of the 
sky, across which the sun, and moon, and stars, and 
planets, in undistinguished order, make their daily 
and their nightly marches. Even this is grand and 
awful, especially since God is seen to direct the 
movement. 

You, however, are able to correct these vulgar 
errors. You can tell the novice, schooled in the 
sanctuary, and who has derived his notions of the 
dimensions of the universe, not from the measure- 
ments of Newton, but from the melodies of Asaph, 
that the earth is not a plane, as he supposes, but a 
globe ; and a globe of secondary magnitude, hung 
in open space, measuring the day by a revolution 
on its axis, and the year by the circuit it performs 



WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. 189 

around the sun, the common centre of the earth, 
and of those other related planets which, with their 
train of secondaries, constitute this system. 

To confirm your doctrine and strengthen his con 
viction of your superiority, you adjust the telescope 
to his eye and point it to the neighbouring planet. 
With reverential awe he looks upon the hills and 
valleys, the morasses, and the plains that diversify 
yon silvery surface. His eye catches the illumi- 
nated summits that glitter in the sunbeam ; and, 
thence descending, traces the lengthening shadows 
that stretch from the broad bases of the lunar mount- 
ains. You turn the instrument to another, and an- 
other, and another of those kindred planets, which 
hang, with their bright array of belts and moons, 
from the solar centre. 

Amazed, he pauses and reflects upon this vision. 
The earth he trod on has sunk beneath him, and the 
heavens he looks at rise into greater majesty. A** 
thousand interesting conjectures start up, a thousand 
anxious inquiries arise. And who so competent to 
answer them as he who, by his superior wisdom, un- 
folded the regions to which they relate 1 Proud of 
this distinction, and confident of your ability to main- 
tain it, you proceed to reply. Naming the planets, 
you tell him their respective densities and distances, 
the inclinations of their axes, and the angles their or- 
bits make with the ecliptic. You acquaint him with 
the seasons of Yenus, the length of a day at Jupi- 
ter, and the duration of the year of the more distant 
Saturn. Elated with this success, and anxious to 
know still more of those worlds you have introduced 



190 WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. 

to his acquaintance, he asks to be informed of what 
material they are composed, when they were created, 
how long they will continue, and what high purpose 
they were designed to answer. But you tell him 
not. 

Again he demands, what is the nature of their 
soil, the kind and variety of their productions, the 
number of their inhabitants, the form of their gov- 
ernments, the character of their literature, and the 
deeds of glory recorded in their histories and cel- 
ebrated in their songs. Has sin entered there ? he 
asks ; has death ? or has salvation been proclaimed ? 
Again you are silent. You answer not, because 
you cannot answer. No eyeglass has made visible 
the hails of justice or the temples of devotion on 
either of the planets ; no turrets are seen, to indi- 
cate their cities of commerce or their seats of em- 
pire ; nor has a sigh or murmur, or a single shout 
of triumph, ever yet been sent down to earth from 
yon distant conjectural population. Thus, even 
here, your boasted wisdom dwindles to a mere 
knowledge of the naked facts of distance, revolu- 
tion, and dimension. But on every question of 
moral moment, concerning all that renders distance, 
and revolution, and dimension interesting, with all 
your parade of the measurements of Newton, you 
are as profoundly ignorant, nay, much more so, than 
that humble learner who has gathered his notions of 
the dimensions of the universe from the meditations 
of Job or the devotional songs of Asaph. 

Nor, if we pass beyond the planets, will your wis- 
dom be fo\md more decisive. How much can you 



WONDEB^ OF THE HEAVENS. 191 

here tell the peasant .;om his cottage, or even the 
Indian from his thicket, which he before knew not 1 

You can tell him that those stars he sees, and 
which seem mere radiant points, are suns, and a 
million times larger than the earth he treads on. 
That their distance is so great, that, were they struck 
from existence, their continued light would fall upon 
the eyes of unborn generations ; and centuries elapse 
before those rays they have already sent forth, and 
whose speed is the speed of lightning, would have 
travelled down from their amazing height to the little 
planet we inhabit ! 

You might, recurring again to the help of glass- 
es, show him other and still more distant, and yet 
other and still more distant central orbs, till you had 
numbered millions ; each a sun, filling its separate 
system with light and heat, and seen, even across the 
immeasurable space between us, in the blaze of its 
own unborrowed glory. 

Here, at this last, farthest, extremest range of as- 
tral observation, vision ceases, and with it ceases all 
your information. But whether even this is crea- 
tion's ultimate limit, you know not, nor does any 
other mortal know. For who can tell whether even 
the range of Herschel's larger telescope was the fix- 
ed radius to which Jehovah set his compass, when he 
swept on every side that mighty circle which divides 
the universe from chaos, and indicates the field with- 
in whose limits His infinite, eternal spirit broods and 
operates ? Or whether other and still more power- 
ful glasses would riot unfold another and a vaster 
range of constellated glories, scattered with a bolder 



192 



WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS. 



hand, and planted at a more awful distance ? This 
vaster range unfolded, whether even this were all ; or 
only some stuall province, some unimportant mem.- 
ber of a yet mightier empire, whose limits and whose 
line of measure, reaching beyond the ken of angels, 
is only known to Him who governs it ; and from 
some loftier height of which an eye looks down on 
us, and on those suns and planets which stretch 
across our firmament, as we look down upon the hid- 
den glories which the microscope reveals suspended 
on the fibres of the vernal flower; and which suns and 
planets, if swept from existence, would be as little 
missed amid the mightier fabrics that still remained, 
as would be that flower, withered on its stem, among 
the varied, rich array of blooming nature. 

Whether we take our stand beneath the seen or 
the unseen firmament, how insignificant is man ! 
Surrounded by such an infinitude of objects — ob- 
jects scattered through such measureless extension, 
what can a creature know of distance or of matter? 
Or, space and matter known, why should a moral 
being glory in that knowledge ? 

Ah! could you lift the Christian from the sanctu- 
ary up to ethereal heights, and plant before him, a fix- 
ed star its pedestal, some mightier telescope than 
Herschel's, and, turning from point to point its am- 
ple tube, show him the kingdoms of the universe (as 
Satan did his master the kingdoms of the world), how 
would one thought of God — that God he worshipped 
in the sanctuary, and whom, placed among the constel- 
lations, he still worships — how would one thought of 
God, even amid this boundless, this glorious prospect. 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 193 

dazzle into darkness all that is bright, and sink into 
insigniticance all that is great ! Descending from 
his empyrean height, and re-entering the sanctuary, 
how would he sympathize with yet profounder hu- 
mility in the sentiment of the prophet now addressed 
to you : Thv^ saith the Lord : Let not the wise man 
glory in his wisdom ; hut let him that glorieth, glory 
in this, that he understandeth and kaoweth J\le ; 
that I am the Lord, ivho exercise loving kindness^ 
judgment, and righteousness in the earth. 

Whatever else we may know, it is the knowledge 
of God — no matter whether obtained beneath the 
ceihng of a temple or the ceiling of the firmament — i 
on a globe of earth or a sun of fire — it is the knowl- 
edge of God which alone gives value and character to 
all our other knovvledge. It is the recognition of his |\ 
great mastering spirit amid the elemental movements J 
— disposing the atom, balancing in air the vapour, , ; 
guiding down to earth the sunbeam, sending forward 
to the shore the billow of the ocean, darting forth from \ 
the tempest-driven cloud the lightning, shaking the j | 
mountains amid the earthquake, staying the constel- ' i 
lations in their places, binding the planetary masses / 
to their centres, and propelling the blazing comet \^ 
along its elongated orbit — it is the recognition of his 
great mastering spirit amid these elemental move- 
ments that strikes the silent awe, that wakes the sol- 
emn interest ! Ah ! you may measure the distance 
of the stars ; you may subject to analysis the ele- f 
ments ; but in God only will you find that energy by | 
which they act, that immensity in which they move. 

Mind has a higher majesty than matter; Iho 



194 PAGAN DIVINITIES. 

knowledge of it is sublimer knowledge ; and of this 
knowledge, that of the eternal mind is immeasurably 
the most sublime. There is an inward sentiment 
in man which renders reasoning on this topic use- 
less. A false and feverish spirit of devotion, even 
where God has been rejected, prompts the deluded 
worshipper to seek a substitute. The territories of 
pagan Rome were endeared by their imaginary genii, 
and the rivers and fountains thereof were consecra- 
ted by their nymphs and naiads. It was not the 
form of Ida nor the height of Olympus, but the 
gods who frequented them, that caused those hills of 
Greece to be so intensely interesting. Even Ho- 
mer has flung additional enchantment over the con- 
flicts he describes, whether of the elements or of 
armies, by the sublime agency of those superior be- 
ings made by his creative fancy, and so admirably 
marshalled and governed through all the varied in- 
cidents of his imperishable song. 

But oh ! what deeper interest, what loftier feeling 
is excited when, not the Jupiter or the Mercury of 
Homer, but the Elohim of Abraham, the Jehovah 
of Moses appears : seated, neither on Olympus nor 
on Ida, but enthroned amid his own immutable per- 
fections — filling with his eternity all duration, and all 
immensity with his omnipresence ! 

Taste, as well as morals, is infinitely indebted to 
those richer views of goodness, those bolder linea 
of wisdom, and that loftier march of power, which 
from the hills of Zion the holy seer has rendered 
visible along the whole course of Providence, and 
throughout every field of nature. 



* 



THEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 195 

That juster and sublimer theology of Moses and \ 
the prophets, of Christ and his apostles, has banish- 
ed not only the hero gods of the poets from our al- 
tars, but also that profane and countless rabble of 
crawling, purring, mewing, bleating, barking, hissing 
divinities from our fountains and our rivers, from 
our fields and our forests. 

The walk of friendship is far more sweet, as is 
the walk of contemplation far more intellectual, 
when only the one almighty, universal God is seen, 
exerting everywhere his wakeful vigilance, and 
throwing around each little being the arms of his 
protection, than when the bewildered wanderer is met 
at every turn by the factitious agency of demons, 
smiling in the dewdrop, scowling in the December 
cloud, sighing mournfully through the forests in the 
mountain breeze, or shrieking angrily from the billow 
in the ocean tempest. 

Nor the walk of friendship only : a richer colour- 
ing, a sublimer aspect is given to the whole of na- 
ture, and a loftier train of associated grandeurs rise 
in prospect, when her incomprehensible phenomena 
are held in contemplation, in connexion only with 
that one great, all-pervading Spirit whom the Bible 
reveals. 

Ah ! how are the horn of Ceres, the arrow of 
Mercury, the trident of Neptune, the thunderbolt of 
Jupiter, with whatever other pagan symbols of di- 
vinity glow on the canvass, breathe from the statue, 
of rise in bold relief from the pages of the poet — 
how is this diminutive, contemptible machinery blot- 
ted from the fancy by the august conception of that 



196 CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE. 

awful Being, of whom the prophet amid the gran 
deurs of Sinai saw no simihtude, and of whom the 
awestruck Israehte, dropping from his trembling 
hand the instrument of his art, attempted none ! 
For, being once possessed with the grand idea of 
the self-existent Spirit, he felt upon his heart, as the 
disciples of the same school now feel upon theirs, a 
deep conviction that, however pagans might paint 
and mould the humble idols of their devotion, the 
real and the living God is not like anything that 
may be drawn upon the canvass or hewed from the 
marble : nay, that, being himself the maker of all 
things, he is not like, and therefore may not be pro- 
fanely likened, either in sculpture, in painting, or in 
song, to anything which he has made, whether in 
heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the wa- 
ters under the earth. 

It is not with Homer, or Virgil, or Lucretius, but 
with Moses, and Job, and David in his hand, that 
the man of taste should contemplate the scenery of 
nature. In the heavenly light which revelation 
throws over the wonders of creation, oh ! how I love 
to mark the blaze of noonday, to catch the breeze of 
evening, to watch the shadows lengthening from the 
mountains as the sun descends behind them, to sur- 
vey the fading landscape beneath the lingering twi- 
light, or raise my wondering eye up to the grandeur 
of the midnight firmament ! All is significant, all is 
replete with interest ; for it speaks the watchful and 
active presence of a spirit infinite, who sees ev>;n 
me, marks out my path amid this mighty movement, 
and shields my being from the crush of yon uplifted 
worlds. 



THE BIBLE. 197 

But it is not in the knowledge of God, as the 
all-powerful Governor of the material elements — > 
though this is knowledge more sublime than any 
which blind, but proud philosophy imparts — it is not 
this knowledge, but the knowledge of Him as 

THE RIGHTEOUS GOVERNOR OF A MORAL UNIVERSE, 

AND OF EVERY PART OF IT, that we are this day 
called to glory in. 

With this knowledge we associate neither Ida nor 
Olympus, hills of Greece, but Carmel and Sharon, 
hills of Palestine. For here it is not the poets of 
Athens, it is not the philosophers of Athens, but the 
prophets of Judah, fishermen from the Sea of Galilee 
and the Lake of Gennesaret who are our teachers. 

Here the Bible is our only text book. To it all 
appeals are made, from it all deductions are drawn. 
Its doctrines are Jehovah's declarations. These 
are truth itself. All we gather elsewhere is only 
ornament or illustration. The learned and the un~ 
learned, on the subject of religion, are all alike shut 
up wholly to the faith. No eyeglass of philosophy 
reaches quite up to heaven or down to hell. As- 
tronomy affords no tables that assist to calculate the 
soul's duration. Chymistry has not yet revealed 
the analysis of death, nor taught her proud disciple 
how to recompose the body once turned to disso- 
lution. We have heard, indeed, of the perfectibility 
of man's physical as well as moral nature. We 
have heard of the progressive triumphs of medicine 
over disease, and of the prospect of its ultimate tri- 
umph over death itself. But no facts corroborate 
tbja boastful theory. As yet, the march of science 



198 THE BIBLE. 

has not kept pace with the march of death. While 
the limit of knowledge has been extending, the limit 
of life has been contracting, and it is even now re- 
duced to a span. Methusaleh lived nine hundred 
and sixty-nine years ; neither Newton nor Halley 
lived a century : all their compeers in wisdom have 
already forsaken us, and the locks of Herschel, 
their disciple, are whitening for the sepulchre. No 
astronomer has yet been able to trace a practicable 
path from mortal up to immortality, nor has the 
tomb of any alchymist, like that which contained 
Elisha's bones, quickened his remains enclosed with- 
in it. The time is far distant when the druggist 
shall vend an antidote for death, or the chymist, by 
any subtile process, revivify the ashes of the urn. 

All of moral moment that we know on these high 
subjects God .has told us. And all that God has 
told us is written in that authentic record of his will 
and revelation of his purposes, the Bible, 

Here we learn, what philosophy teaches not, or 
only indistinctly teaches, that material pomp and 
splendour do not constitute the only or the princi- 
pal exhibition of the Godhead ; that matter, and mag- 
nitude, and distance are no more than his theatre of 
action ; that, amid this outward movement of nu- 
merous worlds, and the conflict of mighty elements, 
he is carrying forward a vast, continuous, and eter- 
nal plan of wisdom and of goodness, which embraces 
not only the armies of heaven and the legions of 
hell, but all the dwellers that are upon the earth. 

Wide as his empire extends, and countless as are 
the worlds which spread their wants before bis eye 



BIRTH OF CHRIST. 199 

and present their claims upon his attention and his 
mercy, how welcome the message assuring us that 
God, rich in the resources of his own exhaustless at- 
tributes, has time and goodness to exercise loving 
kindness, judgm,ent, and righteousness, m this incon- 
siderable province of his immeasurable domains. 
Cold to gratitude must the heart be, and dead to vir- 
tue, which does not respond to that annunciation of 
the angel to which the heavenly host responded, " Be- 
hold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall 
be to all people ; for unto you is born in the city of 
David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." Were a 
wandering planet, that had been driven by some con- 
v^ulsion from its orbit, brought back to move in it 
again, or were the fires of some quenched sun re- 
kindled in the firmament, would philosophy behold 
such renovation with indifference ? And was it, 
think you, an incident of minor interest, when the 
light of virtue again broke forth from the dark disk 
of the moral world, driven by apostacy from its 
sphere of duty, and wandering away from its centre, 
God ; but now brought back, to move, and shine, 
and harmonize, a redeemed member in the one great 
and changeless system of love and righteousness? 
So thought not the angels. Ah ! what an hour was 
that, when on the strings of a thousand harps there 
trembled this note of exultation, Alleluiah, For a 
world was lost, but is found : was dead, but is alive 
again. 

It is the exercise of God's loving kindness on the 
earth which has made it the theatre of scenes that 
excited the highest joy in heaven, and awoke in an- 



200 



GOD S COVENANT MERCIES. 



gelic minds the deepest emotions. True, in dimen* 
sions it is a little world, but its interests are vastly 
important in the plan of Providence. It is the world 
where Adam once lived in innocence, and where the 
posterity of Adam will be raised in power. Defaced 
as its beauty has been, and rebellious as its inhabi- 
tants have become, it still retains many an impress 
of mercy on its surface, and many a beacon of hope 
rises along the entire line of its duration. 

At no period of its history has it been completely 
abandoned. Even in its antediluvian age, Enoch 
walked with God, and Noah preached righteousness. 
Thereafter a covenant was made with Abraham, and 
many a subsequent message was conveyed from 
heaven to earth, through the ministry of angels or 
the inspiration of prophets. In the record of its his- 
tory we read of the ladder of Jacob, the chariot of 
Elijah, and that bush of Moses which burned, but 
consumed not ; and, after the revolution of so many 
ages, there may yet be pointed out upon its map 
that Sinai where the tables of the law were given, 
and that Moriah on which the temple of Jehovah 
stood. But its tenderest memorials of the past, its 
surest tokens for the future, are its manger of Beth- 
lehem, its Garden of Gethsemane, its Hill of Calvary, 
its rock of Joseph, and its top of Olivet. 

These are points of vision on which the eye of a 
sinner, nay, of a seraph, rests with more rapturous 
hopes, gathering more sublime associations than from 
the radiant orbs in that mighty range of constellated 
glories which the telescope reveals. 

Not without reason did an angelic messengef 



KNOWLEDGE OF REDEMPTION. 201 

congratulate the shepherds on that night when the 
heavens resounded with Christ's natal anthem. The 
Udings which he bore were indeed glad tidings, and 
to all people: tidings of justice vindicated, of heav- 
en reconciled, and of sin forgiven. Oh, how the 
moral night brightened when the Star of Bethlehem 
broke upon it ! Since which, this earth has been ad- 
vancing with every revolution towards the dawn ol 
a more effulgent day : this earth, comparatively in- 
significant in its physical dimensions, but great in 
its moral consequence, as being the centre of a glori- 
ous plan of redemption, and distinguished among the 
planets as the theatre of God's loving kindness and 
the birthplace of his Son. 

It is the knowledge of this system of redemption, 
in which such mighty interests are concentred, such 
conflicting claims harmonized, such matchless glories 
brought to light : it is the knowledge of this system, 
and of God in Christ acting by it, that sinks and de- 
grades all other knowledge, and becomes itself ex- 
clusively the sinner's ground of hope and cause of 
glorying. Even Paul, brought up at the feet of Ga- 
maliel, and deeply instructed in the learning of the 
Rabbins, counted his attainments but loss for the ex- 
cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. 

And how is it with you ] You have been study- 
ing the works of God and the Providence of God. 
You have been exercising your intellectual powers 
in the analysis of matter and of mind. With what 
success have you done this 1 Among all the rela- 
tions you have discovered and traced, have you yet 
discovered and traced that great moral relation which 

Q 



S02 god's loving kindness. 

binds you to your Creator's throne ; which makes ^ 
allegiance obligatory ; which makes sin heinous, and 
heU just ? While you have been solving the body in 
the crucible, or gazing on the firmament through the 
telescope, has the conviction fastened upon your 
hearts that, as the sovereign of the universe, God 
deserves the homage of the moral beings who inhab- 
it it ; and that, as being rebels against him, your dam- 
nation has slumbered only because He exerciseth 
loving kindness, as well as judgment and righteous- 
ness, on the earth I 

Of this loving kindness of God, what has been 
your own individual experience ? I speak not now 
of your creation, or of the protection and defence 
you have found in his Providence. I speak not of 
the preservations of infancy ; of your recoveries from 
sickness ; your rescues from danger ; your hair- 
breadth escapes during so many years, and in the 
midst of such mighty desolations : desolations which 
have already swept away more than half the human 
beings who were on the earth when you began to 
exist ; while you, surrounded on every side by the 
remains of the dead, and walking among their sep- 
ulchres, yet continue companions of the living and 
monuments of sparing mercy. I speak not now of 
these things ; but I speak of that loving kindness of 
God, by which the soul oY a sinner is regenerated 
and redeemed. 

You are each of you acquainted with at least one 
wanderer from virtue, one rebel against God. What 
do you know of grace having followed that wander- 
er, and what of his submission and return ? What 



RIGHT EDUCATION. 203 

reception did he meet with, and was it a father's 
welcome that he received ? In one word, have you, 
who have heard so many lectures and studied so 
many sciences, have you yet acquired that saving 
knowledge by which you are enabled more and 
more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness ? 
Do you feel in your souls the hope of sin forgiven, 
and do you find there the evidences of renewing 
mercy ? Has God shed abroad his love in your 
hearts, restraining your appetites, subduing your 
passions, purifying your desires, elevating your af- 
fections, and carrying forward, by the indwelling in- 
fluences of his spirit, a work of sanctification so 
progressive, so holy, so tinctured with the temper 
and the humility of heaven, that you dare to hope 
He purposes you shall enter it. If so, your educa- 
tion, though not complete, has been begun aright. 
Its elements are pure and durable. You have laid 
your foundation deep and broad, and you may build 
upon it a superstructure which no shock shall over- 
throw, and which shall rise in those heavens where 
no telescope can reach. 

But if you have not acquired this knowledge, 
with all your boasted attainments you are fools, and 
the day of judgment and the bar of God will prove 
you so. Yours will be no common destiny, and 
you are even now weaving its fearful web. As 
there are degrees in guilt, so there will be degrees 
in retribution. The servant who knows his mas- 
ter's will and does it not, deserves to be beaten with 
many stripes. It were better to sink into perdition 
from the cities of the plain than from the hills of 



204 HEAVEN REPLETE WITH BEAUTY. 

Zion ; and Sodom and Gomorrah will have less to 
answer for in the day of judgment than Chorazin and 
Bethsaida : nor only than Chorazin and Bethsaida. 

To be driven from the halls of science to the 
prison of demons is to be doubly damned. Ah ! 
how many sad associations, how many agonizing 
contrasts will rush upon the mind of the lettered 
reprobate, doomed to the confinement of convicts 
and the companionship of the finally impenitent ! 

Accustomed to all that is tasteful in art, or sub- 
lime and picturesque in nature, how will he endure 
the privations and the disorder of that abode of hor- 
ror which light never visits, and where salvation 
never comes. In hell there are no temples of sci- 
ence any more than of devotion, no walks of con- 
templation or fields of verdure ; no Ida, or Parnas- 
sus, or Vale of Tempe. All is dark and sombrous, 
as well as impious and guilty ; and the smoke of 
torments endless overhang that starless firmament, 
across which no healthful planet moves, no bow of 
promise stretches. 

It is in other and holier regions where taste as 
well as devotion finds its object and receives its 
consummation. Heaven is as replete with beauty 
as it is secure from evil. There is the tree of life, 
and there the river of salvation. There the cher- 
ubim chant their paeans, and the harps of angels give 
forth their notes of melody. There God for ever 
reigns, seen in the light of his own uncreated perfec- 
tions, and filling the realms of paradise with his pe- 
culiar glory. There his redeemed children obey 
and worship Him. At home in every province of 



INVOCATION. 205 

their Heavenly Father's empire, swiftly and securely 
they fly from world to world, to bear his messages, 
to admire his wonders, and adore his majesty. 
Ah ! who would not inherit heaven ! Who does 
not shrink appalled at the thought of hell ! 

Oh! if a guardian's fondness, if a father's love 
could move you, how would I pour out my full heart 
in expostulation and entreaty. But expostulation 
and entreaty fall powerless on souls which grace 
has never quickened. Oh ! thou Maker of these 
immortal beings, guide them to the knowledge of 
thyself, and bring them to thy kingdom, and to thy 
■»ame shall be the glory. 



206 RELATIONS AMONG CREATED BEINGS. 



XII. 

^Absolute Independence predicable only of God. — The Relations 
between Parents and Children.— A Ibohsh Son a Grief to his 
Father.— Sin the greatest of all Folly.— The Sinner's Charac- 
ter and Course described.— The Effects of Sin.— Children 
growing up in Sin.— The Prodigal Son. — The Anguish occa- 
sioned to Parents by dissolute Children.— Their Affliction in 
leaving such Children behind them.— Their Hopelessness 
in the Death of such Children.— David and Absalom. — The 
Petition of Dives.— Future State of the Wicked. — Close of 
the Argument.] 

Absolute independence exists not except in God. 
Through the whole Une of created intelligences, be- 
ing acts reciprocally upon being. Between the in- 
dividuals of different races the influence of this action 
is felt. Noi the angels themselves are unaffected 
by those changes that affect the destinies of men. 
There is joy in Heaven over the repentant sinner 
on earth. This action increases as the relation be- 
tween beings becomes more intimate. But no re- 
lation is more intimate than that which subsists be- 
tween the parent and the child ; none more indis- 
soluble, and, of course, none more fruitful in pleas- 
ures and in pains. 

Of this, Solomon, that sagacious observer of hu- 
man society, was duly sensible. Taught both by 
experience and observation, he asserts not only 
that a wise son makeih a glad father^ but that a 
foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to 
her that bare him. 

It is not the folly of idiocy, however, but the folly 



IDIOCY. 207 

of sm, to which the wise man here alludes. God 
may, and in his inscrutable wisdom sometimes does 
withhold intelligence from children ; or, having be- 
stowed it, he suffers it to be impaired by disease or 
disaster, and, it may be, even to be utterly destroyed. 
A human being destitute of intellect is. indeed, a 
pitiable spectacle, and doubly so in the eye of an 
affectionate and anxious parent. But even in such 
an eye it is not the most pitiable spectacle. The 
sight of it occasions sorrow, it is true, but not tlie 
most poignant soitow ; not sorrow inconsolable, be- 
cause, with reference to eternity, it is not sorrow 
without hope. 

Death, which crumbles down the body, at best 
a prison, may remove the veil that has so long ob- 
scured the vision of the mental eye, and pour upon 
the idiot's soul, as it escapes from the confinement 
of material organs, the radiance of intellectual day. 
And even though it should be otherwise ; though 
death should bring no relief, and the idiot in eternity 
should be an idiot still, neither the parent nor the 
child would be responsible ; neither would feel com 
punction, neither suffer reproach. 

Idiocy is the act of God. It displays his sov- 
ereignty who in a thousand ways teaches us that 
He is the potter and we the clay ; clay which He 
moulds at pleasure, and for his own glory, into ves- 
sels of honour or of dishonour. 

The withered intellect of an immortal being is, 
indeed, a mystery which reason cannot comprehend, 
and which can be solved by faith even only by 
referring it to that awful Being who sometimes 
pleases to C9yer himself and his ways with dark- 



208 SIN THE HIGHEST FOLLY. 

ness from the scrutiny of man. Providence, as 
well as creation, has its shades; but in both alike 
they are only shades, which relieve the picture of 
good, and soften the blaze of mercy. 

It is not, however, with foolishness as opposed 
to intelligence, but as opposed to virtue, that we are 
at present concerned. The folly of sin is a folly 
which transcends all other folly, and wrings into the 
cup of parental misery that wormwood which no in- 
gredient sweetens or can sweeten. 

This is not a constrained interpretation of the 
words we are now considering. Folli/ and ivisdom 
are expressive of .sm and righteousness on numerous 
pages of the sacred volume. Says Job, Behold the 
fear of the Lord that is ivisdom; and to depart 
from evil is understanding : says David, The fear 
of the Lord is the beginning of ivisdom : a good 
understanding have all they that do his command- 
ments : says Solomon, The fear of the Lord is the 
beginning of knowledge ; but fools despise hioivU 
edge and instruction. It was the fool whose soul 
was required of him in the midst of his revelry ; it 
was the fool who said in his heart there is no God. 

Nor is this a perversion of language. Sin is the 
most consummate folly, and the sinner is pre-emi- 
nently a fool. Not the idiot, slavering out his non- 
sense, furnishes so foul and disgusting a spectacle of 
folly as the sinner muttering his imprecations, hymn- 
ing in secret his obscenities, or belching forth in pub- 
lic his deep-toned blasphemies. What! shall that 
man be deemed rational who insults the God above 
him, who resists the conscience within him, who 



THE SINNER A FOOL. 209 

prostitutes the meicies around him, and, outraging 
reason, outraging faith, outraging decency, breaks 
down before him all the barriers of truth, of justice, 
of temperance, of chastity, and transgresses at every 
step of his bewildered course those eternal njles of 
action which are sanctioned by wisdom, and which 
constitute the boundary between sanity and mad- 
ness ? Shall the man who does this — who does 
this without relenting, and in spite of admonition, in 
spite of warning, in spite of entreaty — the man who 
does this, not casually, but habitually, and who per- 
sists in doing this from his cradle to his sepulchre — 
shall this man be deemed rational ? Ah ! beloved 
pupils, to drink poison one's self, or to cast among 
others firebrands, arrows, and death, and to say, 
" Am I not in sport ]" are not indications of sanity, 
but of madness. Yet such are the indications which 
the life of the sinner furnishes. 

True, the sinner may be endued with natural tal- 
ents. So may the maniac. Sallies of wit, flights 
of fancy are occasionally discoverable : even the 
fire of imagination sometimes sparkles, and corus- 
cations of genius glare amid that ungoverned and 
ungovernable train of thought which he pours forth 
during the paroxysms of his phrensy. Yet the ma- 
niac is not a reasonable creature : so neither, with 
all his love of arts, with all his talents for excelling, 
is the sinner. 

The wicked man, accomplished and erudite as he 

may be. is, notwithstanding, a deranged man. That 

intellectual order which God ordained is subverted, 

and all within is anarchy. Reason is prostrate, lust 

R 



210 RECKLESSNESS OF THE SINNER. 

predominant, and conflicting passions agitate his 
bosom, and wring and rend his soul. Like the ship 
dismantled and rudderless, and at the mercy of the 
elements, he is driven about by every wind that 
blows, and turned from his course by every surge 
that rises. What port he shall arrive at, or on what 
shoals be wrecked, he neither cares nor calculates. 
He takes no observations, he keeps no reckoning, 
he shapes no course : neither chart nor compass is 
regarded : he is impelled by accidental causes and 
in opposite directions, and bis whole voyage is a 
voyage at random. 

This is not exaggeration. Whatever else ^he 
sinner possesses, he possesses no discretion : at 
least he exercises none. He acts according to no 
fixed rules, he lives in conformity to no established 
plan. His intermissions in excess, his changes 
from crime to crime, are wholly capricious ; so that 
whether he becomes less profligate or more so, the 
act is not deliberative, but, as it were, instinctive. 
And, even when he seems to deliberate, the means 
he chooses are mischosen, and have no relation to 
the end he aims at. All is wild, and fanciful, and 
erratic. 

Neither is this exaggeration. If you think so, 
mark the sinner in his bewildered and delirious 
course. His fortune is squandered, his constitution 
destroyed, his honour sullied, his conscience defi- 
led, and his soul sacrificed — heaven sacrificed — im- 
mortality sacrificed. And for what? For nothing. 
He deliberates not, he makes no calculation ; but is 
hurried on, as if lashed by demons, from play to 



MATERNAL TENDERNESS. 211 

gambling, from gambling to the dramshop, from the 
dramshop to the brothel, trom the brothel to the mad- 
house or the prison, and from thence to — hell. 

Again I ask, can such a man be deemed rational 1 
No, he cannot. As we have said, sin i& the most 
consummate folly, and the sinner pre-eminently a 
fool. With truth and reason, therefore, Solomon 
calls a wicked son a foolish son ; and with no less 
truth and reason, he affirms of such a son that 

HE- IS A GRIEF UNTO HIS FATHER, AND BITTER- 
NESS TO HER THAT BARE HIM. 

Mark these emphatic words. Solomon does not 
say that a foolish son is grievous, but a grief unto 
his father : not bitter, but bitterness — the very gall 
itself — to whomi to her that bare him. 

Who would have expected such an issue 1 Be- 
hold with what anguish the mother bears, and with 
what constancy she nurtures that infant at her bo- 
som. All her other cares are laid aside, all her oth- 
er pleasures are forgotten. She tends and caresses 
it by day, and by night she watches the slumber of 
its pillow. She is ever vigilant, ever active, and 
never weary in performing the humblest and most 
tender offices in behalf of that little being. 

So strong is the maternal instinct, so true, so 
steady to its object, that, when the prophet sought 
an image to illustrate the ever-wakeful and never- 
failing faithfulness of God, among all that assem- 
blage of related beings which surrounded Him, no 
ties were found so tender, so indissoluble as those 
which bind a mother to the tenant of her cradle. 
Hence he significantly asks, as being the least prob- 



212 A mother's wretchedness. 

able of all things, and because he could seize on no 
stronger instance of kindness and of constancy^ 
Can a mother forsake her sucking child ? 

And can it be possible that this child, whom, be- 
fore its countenance has been lit up with intelligence 
and snniles — even from the first moment of its being 
the mother forgets not — can it be possible that this 
child, now the source of so much happiness, the ob- 
ject of so many and such delightful hopes, will 
hereafter become the source of the most aggravated 
and unmitigated misery ? 

Yes, even this is possible. Sin subverts the or- 
der and destroys the harmony of all God's works. 
It poisons the very fountains of felicity, and causes 
pain to spring from the soil where pleasure alone 
might be expected to grow. It sunders the ties of 
friendship, and renders the ties of nature even, which 
it cannot sunder, galling and corrosive : so that the 
very bond which binds a mother to her offspring 
binds her to the object of her misery : a misery 
which the partner of her bosom shares, but without 
alleviating ; for it is a misery which admits not of 
consolation, and which division even lessens not. 
Thus it may be said emphatically that a foolish 
son is a grief unto his father, and bitterness to her 
that bare him ; for he is so in life, he is so 

IN DEATH NAY, EVEN AFTER DEATH— IN THAT 

ONLY WORLD WHERE POSTHUMOUS MISERY IS POS- 
SIBLE. 

In Life. Of all the wounds inflicted by one 
human being on the peace of another, none are so 
deep, so lasting, so incurable as those which sin in** 



A PIO¥S MOTHERS SORROW. 213 

flicts : nor is there any object so noxious, so hateful, 
as the agent who inflicts those wounds. Other 
causes may deface the beauty of the body, but sin 
defornns the very soul of man. It renders even 
that deathless inhabitant of the bosom vile and pol- 
luted, as well as guilty and hideous. Not the most 
odious object that meets the eye is so offensive a 
spectacle as the soul of man in ruins : the soul de- 
graded by appetite, defiled by lust, and infected 
throughout with the leprosy of sin. Such a spec- 
tacle, so loathsome even to the eye of strangers, 
what must it be to the eye of kindred : what, espe- 
cially, to th%eye of virtuous parental affection! 

With what emotions must a father, a mother, look 
upon such a child, upon such children : children, the 
objects of their tenderest love, and of their earliest 
and most anxious care ! Children whom they have 
warned and counselled by day, and borne upon their 
hearts to the throne of grace by night ! 

With what emotions must those parents, who them- 
selves feel an habitual horror of sin and dread of 
the displeasure of the Almighty — with what emotions 
must such parents witness the broils, the recrimina- 
tions, and contentions of children, whom they have 
taught so long, and with such assiduous care, to live 
in amity! Ah! with what dissonance must oaths 
and imprecations grate on the parental ear, from lips 
whose first accents were prayer and praise ; but 
whose later and hoarser tones have filled even the 
hallowed retirement of the domestic circle with the 
clamour and the ribaldry of demons ! 

To see the members of a family ripen in sin as 



214 A PIOUS mother's SyRROW. 

they ripen in years ; to see them trampling on au- 
thority, breaking through restraints, and, finally, tear- 
ing themselves away from those withered arms that 
would have still led them back to virtue ; or, if this 
were quite impossible, would at least have kept them 
for a season from perdition ; to see them tearing them- 
selves away from those arms, and, in the spirit of 
fiends, entering on the world only to corrupt and curse 
it — mere outcasts, forsaken of God, despised of men ; 
to see this downward course, this surrender of prerog- 
atives, this sacrifice of prospects, this perversion of 
talents, this prostitution of reason ; to see this in the 
person of a child, already diseased in body as well as 
in mind, and literally corrupting in anticipation for the 
sepulchre ; to see this as a parent sees it, especial 
ly as a mother sees it, and, at the same time, to re- 
member, and to be obhged to remember, that the ob- 
ject of all this guilt, and misery, and disgust, and 
pollution, is hone of her bone and flesh of her flesh — 
oh ! this, this it is that drains from the very worm- 
wood its dregs, and gives to the bitterness of mater- 
nal misery its consummation. The spirit of a man 
may sustain his infirmities ; hut a wounded spirit 
who can hear ? 

When Brutus raised his treacherous arm in the 
Roman senate-chamber, the heart of Ccesar sunk ; 
and, concealing his face beneath his mantle, without 
resistance he received in his bosom the parricidal stab, 
and fell. And yet Brutus owed not Caesar so much 
as children owe their parents ; nor did that parrici- 
dal stab of his inflict so deep or so unnatural a wound 
on Caesar's bosom as children by their crimes in- 
flict on the bosoms of their parents. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 215 

Eli's was not the only priesthood that has been 
dishonoured, nor were his the only gray locks which 
have been brought, by the profligacy of sons, with 
sorrow to the grave. 

You remember that prodigal, whose crimes and 
whose repentance have been rendered memorable by 
the record which Jesus Christ has left of them. 
What, think you, was the father's anguish, when this 
his younger son, impatient of restraint and incapa- 
ble of submission, demanded his portion, and, desert- 
ing his home, commenced his rash and ominous ca- 
reer ? TV hat was his anguish when he saw this son, 
gmdualiy receding from virtue, changing the habits 
of his childhood, and, finally, relinquishing both char- 
acter and conscience, giving himself up wholly to 
debauchery 1 What when he saw him deserted by 
the good, a companion of the vile, surrounded by 
harlots, and squandering even the last remnant of his 
patrimonial inheritance in wanton and riotous living ? 
What, finally, must have been his anguish, when he 
saw that son, once perhaps so amiable, so respecta- 
ble, so promising, and still to a parent's aching heart 
so dear — what must have been his anguish when 
he saw that son, deserted and despised even by the 
wretches who had feasted on his bounty, at length 
reduced to beggary, a keeper of swine, and driven 
by hunger to feed, in common with the herd he tend- 
ed, upon husks ? Let that burst of parental joy 
which welcomed the first home*ward movement of 
this repentant, returning prodigal, answer our inter- 
rogation. 

Vile, and wretched, and covered with rags as he 



216 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

was, his exulting father waited not for his arrival ; 
but, flying to meet him, in ecstasy he fell upon his 
neck and kissed him. The best robe was instantly 
ordered to be put upon him, shoes upon his feet, and 
a ring upon his finger. The fatted calf was killed ; 
the festive board was spread ; and the note of joy 
was again heard within the so long sad and silent 
mansion. 

It was meet it should be so. Why ? A father's 
heart declares the reason for this domestic jubilee : 
Because this my son tvas dead and is alive again ; 
he was lost and is found. To conciliate the elder 
brother returning from the field, and offended at the 
welcome the prodigal had received, the same reason 
was repeated : This thy brother was dead and is 
alive again ; he toas lost and is found. It was meet^ 
therefore, that ive should mahe merry and be glad. 

It was, indeed, meet they should do this : nevei 
was festivity more rational. The very angels sym- 
pathized in it ; for there is joy in heaven over one 
sinner that repenteth^ more than over ninety and nine 
just persons that need no repentance. 

Ye parents, ye afflicted parents, whose hard lot it 
is to have ungodly children ; who in the bitterness 
of your souls have said, and still say, in the closet 
and at the altar, oh ! that God would recall another 
wanderer, and cause that abandoned son of mine to 
relent and to return ; parents whom not death, but 
sin — more cruel than death — has robbed at once of 
your peace and of your children, what solace can I of- 
fer you ] what words of consolation address io you ? 
None : for none would be availing. These are mis- 



PARENTS LEAVING PROFLIGATE CHILDREN. 217 

eries which solace reaches not, and which words of 
consolation only aggravate. Ah ! who can comfort 
those whom the God of heaven has not comforted ? 
Sorrow is yours by His appointment ; and to llim, 
therefore, you can only lift up your hearts and weep. 
Peradventure, even as respects that prodigal of thine, 
His mercies are not quite gone, and His wrath will 
not burn for ever. 

Pity, oh God ! we beseech thee, our guilty and 
erring children. Pour out thy spirit upon them, 
and they shall be renewed. Turn them from the 
error of their ways, and they shall be turned. 

But if a foolish son be a grief to his father, and 
bitterness to her that bare him in life, how much 
more is he a grief and bitterness to them i7i death : 
and this, whether respect be had to the death of the 
parent or of the child. 

The death of the parent. — Can the mind of man 
conceive a thought (except, indeed, it be the dread 
of damnation for one's own sins) — can the mind of 
man conceive a thought so full of terror, of anguish, 
of all that can distract the soul, as the thought of 
dying, and leaving behind a profligate and ungodly 
child — a family of profligate and ungodly children ; 
children with whom all the means of grace have 
proved unavailing ; children whom no kindness 
could conciliate, no counsel influence, no tears soften, 
no motives move ; but who, in despite of parental 
love and parental virtue, have remained obstinately 
impenitent ; and who are now about to be deprived 
of those abused mercies they have hitherto enjoyed, 
and to be left orphans as well as profligates in the 



218 PARENTS LEAVING PROFLIGATE CHILDREN 

midst of an insidious and treacherous world? 1 
repeat it, what other thought is there, except it be 
the dread of one's damnation, which can plant so 
sharp a sting in a parent's bosom, or press upon his 
heart in death with such a tremendous weight ? 

To be surrounded, when dying, by impiety and 
impenitence, by intemperance and debauchery ; to 
be deprived even of the hope of being forgotten 
when dead ; to foresee that one is to be remember- 
ed only through the profligacy of children who are 
left behind, to nurture, it may be, other children 
still more profligate than themselves, and who, in 
their turn, shall nurture others, thus transmitting guilt 
and misery through a race of immortal beings, and 
sealing reprobation, perhaps, to a remote posterity — 
what ideas are these ! ideas rendered still more 
dreadful by the remembrance of these tremendous 
words : For I, the Lord thy God, am a jeal- 
ous God, visiting the iniquities of the fa- 
thers UPON THE CHILDREN, UNTO THE THIRD AND 
FOURTH GENERATION OF THEM THAT HATE ME ! 

Miserable comforters indeed are wicked children 
around the pillow of a dying parent. What an af- 
flicting prospect to the eye ! What sad forebodings 
does it press upon the heart ! My God, deliver me 
in that hour from the bitterness of such a scene. 
Oh ! grant that the hand of filial piety may wipe 
the cold dew from this forehead and close these 
eyelids. Then shall thy servant die in peace, when 
his eye shall have seen thy salvation in the person 
of his children. 

The death of the child. — Ah ! how hard, how 



DAVID AND ABSALOM. 219 

very hard to a pious parent to give up for ever an 
unrepenting and incorrigible child. David had such 
a child : but mark how he loved him ; even after he 
became his enemy, how he loved him. 

Though he had alienated from his father the af- 
fections of his people, wrested from his hand the 
sceptre, and seized by violence on his throne, Absa- 
lom was still unsatisfied. With the ingratitude of a 
demon he pursued that father, who, bowed with age, 
fled before his son over Kedron into the wilderness, 
as a doe flies to the thicket before the tiger. Yet, 
even in this exile so afflicting, so unnatural, David, 
forgetful of himself, remembered only Absalom, and 
pitied him. Yes, even there nature asserted her 
empire in the heart of the deposed monarch ; and 
the compassion of a father, in all its tenderness and 
strength, returned. Gladly would he have stayed 
the arm of retribution, and snatched this intended 
parricide from the vengeance he deserved. Thus, 
even at the hazard of his kingdom and his life, in 
opposition to himself, he interceded for the traitor. 
All were strictly charged, for the father^s sake, to 
spare his son, though in arms against him. To the 
captains of Israel, even to Abner, Abishai, and Ittai, 
as he sent them forth to the battle, he said. Deal 
gently, for my sake, ivith the young man ; even with 
Absalom. 

When the messengers, Ahimaas and Cushi, arri- 
ved in succession with tidings from the camp, though 
his crown and kingdom were suspended on the issue, 
the first anxious inquiry which David addressed to 
them was not, has Abner been victorious X but is 



220 DAVID AND ABSALOM. 

the young man Msalom safe ? The enemies of mij 
lord the king^ replied Cushi, the enemies of my lord 
the king, and all that rise up against thee to do thee 
hurt, be as that young man is. Not the tender and 
flattering terms in which this triumph was announced 
could render it acceptable. The voice of Cushi, 
joyful to every other heart, conveyed no joy to the 
sorrow-stricken heart of David. Far from it. The 
king was much moved, and ivent up to the chamber 
over the gate, and wept : and as he ivept, thus ht 
said. Oh ! my son Msalom ! my son, my son Jlbsa- 
lorn ! woidd God I had died for thee, oh Msalom, 
my son, my son! 

Nor is David the only father who has felt this 
sentiment, and spoken this language beside the bier 
and at the grave of his son. There is a sorrow far 
more inconsolable than that of Rachel's, who filled 
ancient Rama with her lamentation, and who refused 
to be comforted ; because there is a thought far 
more distressing, even to a mother's heart, than the 
thought that her infant children are not. The wick- 
ed lives of children, their unforgiven sins, ah ! this 
it is that robs the mourner of the mourner's conso- 
lation, and changes, even in the maternal hand, the 
cup of death, always bitter, into bitterness itself. 

Ah ! ye unnatural children ! ye murderers of your 
parent's peace, in what language of remonstrance 
shall I address you ? Alas ! there is no language of 
remonstrance of power to reach and quicken a bosom 
dead to every ingenuous feeUng — df^ad even to filial 
gratitude. That is the last throb felt by the seared 
conscience ; the last sentiment of hopeful omen that 



PROFLIGATE PARENTS. 221 

forsakes the indurating heart. But remember, scof* 
fer, though dead to virtue, you are not dead to suf* 
fering. From the habitation of your mother, made 
wretclied by your profligacy; from the tomb of your 
father, slain by your ingratitude, your sins cry aloud 
to heaven against you. Forbearance has its limit ; 
God is just as well as merciful ; and wo unto that 
sinner on whom at once rests his parents' bluod and 
his Maker's malediction. The eye that mockeih at 
his father and despiseth to obey his mother^ the ra» 
liens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young 
eagles shall eat it. These are awful words. Let 
them sink into thy heart, profligate young man ; thou 
rebel at once against nature and against God. 

But to return from this digression. Not even the 
wickedness of parents invalidates the truth of the 
position we have been attempting to illustrate and 
enforce. Profligate as your father or mother may 
be, they are not so profligate but that your sins will 
aggravate their misery. Yes, even profligate pa- 
rents wish the happiness of their children. In theit 
hearts so obdurate, there is still one cord that vi- 
brates in unison with nature. 

But, even were it otherwise ; though they had lost 
the parental instinct, and become as selfish and as 
reprobate in their feelings as the damned, a foolish 
son would still be a grief and bitterness to them. Sin 
mingles its poison in the cup of the wicked, and 
carries its woes into their families as well as into 
the families of the righteous. A wicked son, there- 
fore, even to wicked parents, must be a grief and 
bitterness. He must be so in life, so in death ; 



222 DIVES. 

and so after death, in that only world where 

POSTHUMOUS SUFFERING IS POSSIBLE. 

When Dives hfted up his eyes in torments, and 
saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, 
he addressed to the patriarch two petitions, and but 
two ; the one respecting himself, the other his kin- 
dred. Sweltering beneath his Maker's wrath, and 
finding no rest, he cried and said, Father Mraham^ 
have mercy on me ; M7id send Lazarus that he may 
dip the tip of his finger in ivater and cool my tongue ; 
for I am tormented in this flame. This denied him, 
he added, / pray thee, therefore, father, that thou 
wouldst send him to my father'' s house ; for I have 
five brethren ; that he may testify unto them, less 
they also come into this place of torment. 

Whether this petition was prompted by a dread 
that the presence of his brethren would aggravate his 
misery, or whether the sympathies between kindred 
on the earth find place in hell, is not material to in- 
quire. It is enough for us to know that Dives thus 
prayed. And be it remembered, this is the only 
form of prayer we have any knowledge of having 
,, ever been offered up in those regions of dark despair 

I which mercy never visits, and to which dehverance 

[ never comes. Methinks I hear the same mournful 

I cry repeated in behalf of children by every ungodly 

parent that has joined Dives in his abode of misery. 
Since it is so — since not even Lazarus may be 
[I permitted to administer to our relief, though but one 

drop of water, oh ! that it were granted that he 
might go to yonder world, where mercy is still ad* 
L missible ; that he might go to the houses we once 



FUTURE PUNISHMENTS. 223 

inhabited ; to the children we have left — left, cor- 
rupted by our counsel, ensnared by our example — 
oh ! that it were granted that some messenger might 
be sent to warn them, lest they should also come to» 
aggravate our doom in this place of torment. 

Nor is it strange that the anticipated dread oj 
such a vengeance should extort, even from damned 
spirits, such a note of supplication. For, among all 
the forms of retribution which incensed justice has 
in store for sinners, what damnation is there so doub- 
ly to be deprecated as the meeting of a parent with 
a child — in hell ! Ah ! what mutual curses and re- 
criminations will be exchanged between the malig- 
nant, fiendlike offspring, and the no less malignant 
and fiendlike author of his being and his misery ; 
who, having inherited on earth his father's crimes and 
fortunes, has come to share in hell, and to aggravate 
by sharing, the torments of his reprobation. 

Imagine such a meeting. Oh ! how the cavern 
deepens ! how the darkness blackens ! while from 
the gulf below is heard a groan of more, more deep- 
toned misery. But I forbear. Let the veil rest 
which covers a scene by living men not conceivable. 
As yet, thanks to Almighty God, we know not its ter- 
rors. May He grant that w^e shall never know them. 

I have now reached the consummation of my ar- 
gument ; and, in^ view of all that has been said, are 
you, who have heard me, willing to take, with a life 
of sin, its consequences ? Art thou willing, thou 
gowned fool — thou fool even from the halls of litera- 
ture and from the vestibule of science — art thou 
willing to sacrifice at once thine own peace and the 



224 HEAVENLY WISDOM. 

peace of those whose happiness is identified with 
thine, bone as thou art of their bone, and flesh of 
their flesh ? Are ye willing, ye profane young men, 
who, with all your learning, have yet to learn that 
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom — 
are ye willing to become the assassins of your godly 
parents on the earth, or the executioners of eternal 
vengeance on your ungodly ones — in hell ? 

By all that is touching in a parent's misery — by all 
that is dreadful in the Almighty's malediction — by the 
terrors of the hour of final separation, and the deep- 
er terrors of an after- meeting to the wicked, doomed 
to become, and to continue through eternity, tor- 
mentors of each other — I adjure you to renounce 
your folly, and, ere the guardianship of the spirit is 
withdrawn and the temple of mercy shut, betake 
yourselves to acquiring that heavenly wisdom which 
will abide the coming of the Son of Man, and be 
availing in the day of judgment and at the bar of 
God : a wisdom which the Academy teaches not, 
and cannot teach. It is not from Socrates or Sen- 
eca that w^e learn to know God and Jesus Christ, 
whom to know aright is life eternal : a knowledge, 
in comparison with which the learning of the schools 
is folly, and the boastful possessor of it, untaught in 
purer doctrine and by a holier teacher, is, and will 
remain throughout eternity, a fool. 

Oh God ! this wisdom from above is thy hallo w- 
n?, h-illovved gift. Bestow it on these youth ere 
they depart from around thine altar, lest they return 
to their homes the harbingers of discord, and carry 
into the domestic circle, and to their parents' hearts 



GOD S BLESSING INVOKED. 225 

that deep misery for which, grace apart, there is 
neither antidote nor remedy. 

Hear this our prayer in their behalf. Confirm 
the wise in their wisdom, and turn the heart of the 
fool from his folly. Do this, thou Author of our 
being, thou Father of our spirits and object of our 
hopes, for Christ's sake, and to thy name shall be 
the glory. 



226 THK DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 



XIII. 

[All wish to Die with the Assurance of Happiness hereafter.— 
As Youth is the most important, it is also the most danger- 
ous Period of Life. — Rehgion only can guard against the 
Temptations incident to this Period. — The Example of Jo- 
siah.— Ail Men mean to repent of their Sins. — Danger of 
delaying Repentance — from the uncertainty of Life and of 
the contmued possession of Reason— from the hardening ef- 
fects of Perseverance in Sin — from being left to a Reprobate 
Mind.] 

Let me die the death of the righteous^ and let my 
last end he like his, exclaimed the son of Beor, 
when summoned by Balak to curse the Israel of 
God. Lives there a man who does not sympathize 
in this sentiment of the prophet, or who would not 
appropriate his language ? 

Could we travel round our world, and, visiting all 
the dwelling-places of its guilty inhabitants, collect 
their various opinions, adverse as we might find 
them on other questions, on this they would be found 
to harmonize in one common and fraternal senti- 
ment, Let us die the death of the righteous j and let 
our last end be like his. 

Let me die the death of the righteous is articula- 
ted by the tongue of the miser, as he appropriates 
the dower of the widow, and throws his remorseless 
fangs over the orphan's patrimony. 

Let me die the death of the righteous trembles 
on the lips of the drunkard as he mingles his cup, 
and in the intervals of his execrations. Even from 
the hall of youthful revelry might be heard, were the 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS. 227 

language of the heart audible, that prayer, their only 
prayer, Let us die the death of the righteous^ and let 
our last end be like his. 

Much, however, as all desire to die the death of 
the righteous, few are disposed to live his life ; and 
yet the one is not to be expected without the other. 

To urge the immediate adoption of the life of the 
righteous cannot, therefore, be impertinent at such 
a time and before such an audience. 

If piety be desirable at all, early piety is desirable. 
Youth is at once the most important and the most 
perilous period of man^s existence. 

It is the most important, because it is the first ; 
and, as such, leaves its own impressions on all those 
other periods that follow in an endless series. 

Man enters on existence ignorant and impotent, 
but pliable and docile. The first impressions on 
his heart are the deepest and the most abiding. 
Thus, at the outset, and during the inceptive process 
of moral agency, a cast is given to his tone of feel- 
ing and his type of character. Secondary impres- 
sions of a similar kind only deepen the preceding, 
and carry forward the process of formation. Soon 
his taste receives a bias ; soon his pleasures are se- 
lected, his companions chosen, and his manner of 
life settled. Thenceforward he advances, I do not 
say under an absolute necessity of being, but strong- 
ly predisposed to be, for ever after what he hitherto 
has been. Habit renders pleasurable what indul- 
gence has made familiar. Hence the sentiments 
cherished, the maxims adopted, the modes of think- 
ing and acting practised in youth, cleave to the man 



228 DANGERS OF YOUTH. 

with the tenacity of a second nature ; and thus the 
web of life runs on uniform in its texture, and woven 
of the same material to its close. All, therefore, 
that is either grand and glorious, or mean and mis- 
erable, in ceaseless being, is contained in embryo in 
life's first act. And every step which the actor 
takes on earth is a step of destiny ; for it is a step 
towards hell or heaven. 

As youth is the most important, so it is the most 
perilous period of man^s existence. 

It is the period of fancy, of imagination, of pas- 
sion ; the period when the world appears most gaudy, 
and pleasure is most enticing. Reason, as yet, has 
not detected the sophistry of sin, nor experience re- 
vealed its bitterness. Even that worldly prudence 
which age imparts is not yet acquired ; and all the 
avenues of the heart are left open and unguarded to 
the assaults of every invader. 

Now it is that health nerves the arm, ardour fires 
the bosom, and insatiable desires prompt to action. 
Now it is that a field of ideal glory presents itself, 
rich in objects of interest, and replete with scenes of 
gratification ; a field where every evil is disguised, 
every danger concealed, every enemy masked ; 
where vision follows vision, and phantom succeeds 
phantom. Wealth, honour, pleasure, each big with 
promise, but faithless in performance, courts his at- 
tention and solicits his choice. Forms of beauty 
flit before his eye, songs of melody enchant his ear, 
streams of bliss invite his taste ; and, before a crea- 
ture who is to die to-morrow, a long life rises up in 
prospect; while from the banquet of bewildering 



RELIGION THE BEST SAFEGUARD. 229 

folly a voice is heard to say, " Rejoice, oh young 
man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in 
the days of thy youth ; and walk in the ways of 
thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes ;" but that 
voice adds not, and the deluded victim knows not, 
that it remains to be added, " Know thou that for all 
these things God will bring thee into judgment?" 

At such a moment of danger, at such a crisis of 
being, ah I how needful the eye of faith, the anchor 
of hope, and the monition of the Spirit. 

Religion, at the very outset, places her votary on 
the vantage ground in this warfare of the soul. To 
him, in anticipation, she unmasks the world, exposes 
its vanity, discovers the sting v/hich sin conceals, 
and detects the poison which pleasure mingles in her 
chalice. When temptation assails, when passion 
impels, when companions invite, she interposes eter- 
nal sanctions, sheds prophetic light on the eye turn- 
ed heavenward ; and God, who sees, is seen by it : 
the spell breaks, the vision vanishes, and the child 
of promise, recovering his decision, shrinks back, 
and drops the fatal cup, untasted, from his hand. 
His patrimony is spared, his constitution spared, his 
honour spared : life stiil remains a blessing, and 
heaven is still attainable. 

What but piety preserved Joseph in the house of 
Potiphar ? W^hat but piety sustained Josiah on the 
throne of Israel ? You remember the history of this 
enviable youth ? Descended from a libertine parent- 
age, nurtured at a licentious court, he succeeded at 
a tender age to the sovereignty of a mighty empire. 
But even on this giddy height, and compassed by 



230 EXAMPLE OF JOSIAH. 

every allurement and seduction, the young Josiah 
stood secure ; and, though he had no example to 
copy, no friend to counsel, no monitor to warn, still 
he continued inflexible, and to the end resolutely 
maintained his integrity. More than this, he breast- 
ed the torrent of national corruption, gave a new 
tone to public sentiment, and brought back a whole 
community to the practice of virtue and the worship 
of Jehovah. 

And what was the cause of this singular felicity ? 
Religion. His heart had been early imbued with 
the spirit of piety, and he entered on his reign in the 
fear of the God of his fathers. It was not the bat- 
tles he fought, it was not the desolation he occasion- 
ed, but the deeds of goodness he performed which 
endear his memory, and will continue to endear it to 
a thousand generations. 

Adventurous youth, just entering on the world, 
need you not that shelter which Josiah needed ? 
Are you quite sure that no temptation will prevail 
against your virtue ? no sally of passion pollute your 
honour 1 no deed of rashness wreck your hopes ] 
Go, then, daring adventurer ; go unsheltered to the 
combat, and without thine armour. Thy very con- 
fidence is ominous, and presages naught but danger. 
Now, as formerly, Quern vult Deus perdere., priua 
dementaL 

But, apart from the virtue it secures and the safety 
it affords, it were wise to become religious in youths 
because of the uncertainty of becoming so thereafter. 

Whether you desire at all to become religious is 
not now, nor has it ever been, a question. Live as 



FOLLY OF DELAYING REPENTANCE. 231 

he may, no man means to die a sinner. Each one 
who hears me has already offered up the prayer of 
the son of Beor ; and you all intend to put your- 
selves in an attitude for receiving its fulfilment. 
Yes ; you all intend, ere long, and before the sum- 
mons shall have gone forth, Aivay^ sinner^ away to 
judgment^ you all intend to break off your sins by 
repentance, and by faith to make your peace with " 
God. 

But when ? Perhaps in meridian life — in old at 
farthest. But know you not that the meridian life, 
the old age on which you calculate, and on which 
such mighty interests are to hang suspended, are quite 
uncertain 1 Has mortal man any claim upon the 
future 1 Or lives there one who is certain of to- 
morrow ? 

Rash neglecter of present opportunity, who art 
thou ? or what was thine origin, and what will be thine 
end, that thou shouldst court such hazard, and stake 
thy soul on a mere contingency ] 

On repentance that is future thou art relying for 
the expiation of present crimes. But when is that 
repentance to be performed ? Where is it to be 
performed ? On earth ? Hast thou, then, made a 
covenant with death? Hast thou entered into a 
league with hell 1 Are the ministers of wrath shut 
up, or is the arm of Omnipotence chained back, that 
folly should presume on sufferance, and treason rely 
upon impunity ? 

Behold, saith the high and lofty One that inhab- 
iteth eternity^ whose name is Holy, your covenant 
with death shall not stand ; your agreement with hell 



232 UNCERTAINTY OF THE FUTURE. 

shall be disannulled. When the overjloiving scourge 
shall pass through^ then ye shall be trodden down of 
it. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righte^ 
ousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep 
away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow 
the hiding-place — of sinners. 

Preposterous youth, and are thy powers of action 
at the outset to be perverted, and thy first years of 
being to be filled up with sin ? How durst thou, 
even for a moment, make God thine enemy, and 
set thy Maker at defiance 1 When he but wills the 
sinner's overthrow, every agent in the universe be- 
comes a messenger of evil, and every element of 
nature a minister of death. Now, as formerly, there 
is a destroying angel that walketh in darkness, and 
a pestilence that wasteth at noon day. 

Be your intentions what they may as to a future 
reformation, what assurance have you of a future op- 
portunity ? How know you that God will propor- 
tion his mercy to your misery, and spare you until 
age, that you may bewail the crimes of youth : 
crimes deliberately committed, and with a view to 
be repented of? 

A fearful uncertainty overhangs the future. Youth 
and age, strength and imbecility, bow alike before 
the King of Terrors. That young man, devoid of 
understanding, whom Solomon saw from the case- 
ment of his window, presumed on future penitence. 
Imboldened by this presumption, he yielded to the 
voice of flattery, and hastened to that banquet whence 
he returned not ; for suddenly a dart passed through 
his vitals. Thus goeth the sinner to his pleasure, as 



PROBABILITY IF EARLY DEATH. 233 

the ox goeth to the slaughter, or the bird to the snare, 
and knoweth not that it is for his life. 

Indulge not the vain dream of a future opportuni- 
ty. In the counsels of God no such opportunity 
may ever be granted. On the contrary, many of 
you will die ; will have appeared at the bar of God ; 
will have received your doom, and passed onward to 
that state where the unrighteous are unrighteous still, 
before that period shall have arrived which you are 
now presumptuously appropriating to a preparation 
for these dread events. 

Do you ask for proof of this? The monuments 
m every cemetery furnish it. There it is written on 
many a marble tablet, with the iron pen of death. 
Have you not beheld those mounds where youth and 
beauty lie interred ? Have you not read the prophet- 
ic lessons there inscribed ? The testimony of the 
dead is decisive testimony : sustained by which, we 
announce to you who hear us, that many a living youth 
is marked for the sepulchre, and will prematurely 
reach it. The decree has passed ; the designation 
for early death has already been made in heaven ; 
and time will reveal the order of that succession 
which will conduct you severally to your unlooked- 
for dissolution. How dangerous, then, delay ! 
Hcpes built on future opportunity, how fallacious ! 
Know, oh man ! that now is the accepted time, 
now the day of salvation. By embracing religion 
now, you make God your friend, and secure the prize 
of immortality. By neglecting to embrace it, you 
put your souls in jeopardy, and leuve the question 
of ultimate salvation suspended on contingency : a 



234 MENTAL DERANGEMENT. 

contingency how full of peril ! since more than half 
of all who yet have lived have died before maturity. 
And, knowing this, will the living still procrastinate 1 
Or, if they do, will not death, that finds them with- 
out preparation, find them also without excuse ? 

But death is not the only contingency which ren- 
ders dependance on future penitence fallacious. 

Those mental powers, without the exercise of 
which repentance is impossible, are held by a preca- 
rious tenure. God, who withdraws his spirit and 
the heart indurates, touches the nerves of the brain 
and reason departs, foresight departs, reflection 
departs, and all the attributes on which moral 
agency depends, and which give to being all its value, 
as if blotted from the soul, cease to be manifest ; 
or, if manifest, appearing only in conflict, like the 
troubled elements of nature when the laws which 
govern them are disturbed or suspended. 

Have you not read of that king of Babylon, ex- 
iled by mental malady from the society of man, who 
ate grass like the ox, and was wet with the dew of 
heaven till his hair became like birds' feathers, and 
bis nails hke eagles' claws ? 

Have you never seen a fellow- creature bereft of 
reason, chained in his cell, or fearfully ranging in 
his liberty ? And felt you not the withering influ- 
ence of that glance which he cast upon you ? Felt 
you not the spell of that piercing shriek which he 
sent forward to your ear? That unhappy being 
once possessed talents ; once indulged in dreams 
of happiness ; once formed plans of reformation. 
Wretched wanderer, what avail him now those plans 
and purposes ! 



GOD CALLS TO PRESENT REPENTANCE. 235 

Can he pray ? Can he believe ? Can he repent, 
or make aught of preparation for death, for heaven, 
or for judgment ? Ah ! no. Whatever of guilt was 
on his conscience, when from the Almighty this 
blight came over him, he must carry it unrepented 
of, and therefore unforgiven, to the bar of retribution. 

His fate, presumptuous young man, may be thine 
own. Minds of the finest texture and the highest 
cultivation are peculiarly exposed to mental malady. 
They who think most are most in danger of losing 
the capacity of thought. It is from the halls of ^ 
science, from among the votaries of the muses, that 
lunatic asylums receive their most regular and con- 
stant accessions. Oh, then, serve God now. Here- 
after thou mayest not have the ability to serve him ; 
or, if the ability, not the disposition. 

You imagine reason permanent, death distant; 
and that ample time remains to be appropriated to 
religion. Suppose it were so : does it follow that 
that time will be so appropriated 1 Having despised 
God in youth, are you sure that you will be disposed 
to render, or he to accept the services of age ? It is 
not quite so clear that sin indulged conduces to the 
renunciation of sin ; or that the dregs of life are the 
most acceptable offering which man can present to 
his Maker. 

It is not said of those who seek God late, but of 
those who seek him early, that they shall find him. 
Wherefore, ye young, turn at his reproof. On you 
he will pour out his Spirit : to you he will make 
known his words. Reason allows of no delay : re- 
ligion allows of no delay. The language of both 



236 SIN HARDENS THE HEART. 

is, Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy 

youths before the evil days come^ and the years draio 

nigh when thou shall say, I have no pleasure in 

them. Now is the time for decisive action ; noiv, 

not to-morrow. God is found of them who seek 

him early : 

" Now is the time he bends his ear, 
And waits for your request ; 
Come, lest he rouse his wrath, and swear 
You shall not see my rest." 

But if you neglect to secure salvation in a season 
the most favourable, is it probable that you will se- 
cure it in a season that is the least so 1 Will crime, 
think you, appear more odious the more it is famil- 
iarized ? Or will the love of God fall with greater 
power upon the heart the longer it casts contempt 
upon that love 1 

Ah ! no ; though you were to live as long as did 
Methusaleh, if you embrace not religion in youth, it 
is not probable that you will afterward embrace it. 
As the twig is bent the tree is inclined throughout 
the whole extent of God's moral husbandry. Ex- 
ceptions, indeed, there may be, but they are only 
exceptions. 

Far be it from me to detract from the power of 
grace, or to set limits to the Holy One of Israel. 
There is a bolt by which the cedar of Lebanon is 
riven, a blast before which the oak of Bashan 
bows. But not like these are the ordinary visita- 
tions of the Spirit. It descends, not like the tem- 
pest in its stren^h, assailing the aged, and subduing 
the confirmed in sin, but like the shower upon the 
new-mown grass, the dew upon the tender plant, 



AGED SINNERS. 237 

raui^ing th^ young to hearken, and out of the moutha 
of babes and sucklings perfecting praise. 

I repeat it : if you do not in youth embrace reli- 
gion, it is not probable that you will ever afterward 
embrace it. 

Among the multitude by crime rendered memo- 
arable, can you name one sinner whom age has re- 
formed ? It was not Cain ; it was not Ahab ; it 
was not Jezebel ; it was not Herod : no, nor was it 
any of their profane coadjutors. But, waving the 
record of by-gone days, where is now its reforming 
influence ? 

Look into the world. Do you not see the misei 
still hugging his treasure, and the drunkard still rev- 
elling in his cups, though both are gray with age, 
and bending to the tomb? Even these wretched 
outcasts, now so dead in sin, so callous to reproof, 
once seriously intended to devote the evening of their 
days to God. 

But have they done this ? No : nor will they. 
In the attitude you see them now, death will find 
them, and, with their sins upon them, they will ap- 
pear at the bar of judgment. 

Age reform the sinner 1 Ah, no ! Age has no 
reforming power. As well might the Ethiopian 
change his skin or the leopard his spots, as that 
they who have been accustomed to do evil should 
learn to do well. 

But you imagine that with you it will be different. 
That, unlike those miserable men who have lived be- 
fore you, you will love sin less the more you prac- 
tice it ; that you will think of God more the longer 



238 god's spirit essential to conversion. 

he has been forgotten ; that, having first secured this 
world, you will be all attention to secure the next. 

Were it even so, still your salvation would be un- 
certain. Wearied and worn out in the service of 
Satan, what assurance have you that you will be ad- 
mitted to the service of God ? The vigour of youth 
exhausted in dishonouring your Creator, is it certain 
he will accept the dregs of age — the valueless trib- 
ute you have the audacity to intend offering him ] 

When the frosts of threescore years shall have 
passed over you, withering all your joys, and ex- 
tinguishing all your hopes ; when, having reached 
the verge of life, and standing on the brink of eter- 
nity, you shall turn your affrighted eye to heaven, 
and try your unpractised voice in supplication unto 
God, are you quite sure that he will hear your cry, that 
he will answer your petition ? May he not then say 
to you as he said to Judah, Go noiv^ and cry unto the 
gods to whom you have offered sacrifice 1 May he 
not say unto you. Go, sinner ; go to the world — to 
its pastimes and pleasures : these have been thine 
idols ; let them save thee. 

There is a state, in regard to which God says of 
the wicked, they shall cry to me, but I will no an- 
swer. 

The spirit of God is indispensable to your con- 
version. That spirit now offers you its aid. Be- 
hold, 'I stand at the door and knock. Hitherto you 
have refused it admission. Even now you say, De- 
part from us : we desire not the knowledge of thy 
ways. Taken at your word, that spirit may depart 
from you. Know you not who it was that said, 



SINNER ABANDONED BY GOD. 239 

My spirit shall not always strive with man 1 Wo 
unto that sinner, abandoned by the Spirit, concern- 
ing whom it shall be said, as it was said of Ephra- 
im of old. Let him alone ; he is joined to his idols. 
Oh God ! interpose thy mercy, and avert from us 
so frightful a doom ; and to thy name shall be the 
glory. Amen. 



240 COMMAND OF CHRIST. 

XIV. 

ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE BIBLE SOCIETY, 1819. 

[Character and Design of the Bible Society. — Christian Com 
munities do not sufficiently appreciate their indebtedness to 
the Bible. — Nearly all that is pure in Morals or kindly in Feel- 
ing derived from it.— In the first Ages of the World, God's 
Communications to Man were direct, and were perpetuated 
and extended by Tradition. — The early Longevity of Mankind 
favourable to this — The Traditions and Institutions of heathen 
Nations coincide with and confirm the sacred Records of the 
Jews. — Divine Revelation and the Speculations of human 
Reason, as exhibited in their different Effects. — Dreadful 
Moral Corruption of the heathen World.— Influence of Chris- 
tianity in ameliorating the Condition and Morals of Mankind. 
— Unspeakable importance of Divine Revelation in regard to 
a future State. — The duty of Christians to extend it to all 
Nations.] 

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
every creature, said the risen Saviour to his aston- 
ished disciples. Obedient to his mandate, and re- 
nouncing their humble occupations, they began to 
publish the glad tidings. 

What was said to them is, in effect, said to us, 
and to all who have received the doctrine of his res- 
urrection. Though not evangelists ourselves, it is 
our duty to become helpers to those who are. And 
this we may do extensively, and, if God please, ef- 
ficaciously, by aiding to translate, to print, and to 
distribute the book in which that gospel, command- 
ed to be preached to every creature, is contained. 

The speaker's voice is evanescent : this printed 
record permanent. The speaker's voice is erring 9 



CHARACTER OP THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 241 

this printed record is triuli itself; the pure, unmixed, 
unadulterated word of God. 

I address the members of this society, not as a 
few isolated individuals, associated for the purpose of 
giving a. Bible to each one of their destitute acquaint- 
3«ce (though this were laudable), but as an integral 
part of a vast association : an association which 
stretches across the ocean, and compasses both con- 
tinents ; an association which concentrates the in- 
fluence of distant nations, and is grasping the mighty 
object of preaching by the printed word, in all lan- 
guages, the gospel of their common Lord to every 
creature. An association, in behalf of which saints 
on earth offer up their prayers ; on which angels in 
heaven look down propitious ; and which shall, as 
we trust in God, continue to exist long after its pres- 
ent members are forgotten ; nor remit its exertions 
till every family under heaven possesses a Bible, 
and each member thereof has read or listened to its 
contents. 

In contemplating such an association, with what 
force do the prophetic words of St. John rush upon 
the mind 1 And I saw another angel flying through 
the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel 
to preach unto them that dwell on the earth ; and to 
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. 

If the most splendid triumphs followed the first 
proclamation of the glad tidings by the living voice, 
what may we not hope for from a second proclama- 
tion of the same tidings by the written word ! And 
who knows but the reappearance of that primitive 
catholic spirit, which is forcing into union sects so 



242 AIM OF THE BIBLE SOUlETi'. 

adverse, and giving a moral organization to the com* 
monwealth of Christendom— -who knows but this 
spirit is the welcome harbinger, and this organiza- 
tion the honoured instrument destined to introduce 
the church's jubilee — mankind's millennium ? 

To justify the formation of a society, it is suffi- 
cient that its object be a rightful one. But if the 
pubhc patronage be claimed in its behalf; if the 
community are called upon to embark in its design ; 
if the rich are required to contribute their riches, the 
powerful their influence, and the pious their prayers, 
then is it incumbent on its advocate to show, not 
only that the object proposed by it is rightful, but 
that it is also important ; and that great exertions 
are not called for without an aim commensurately 
great. 

In behalf of the society in whose name I now 
address you, great exertions are caJled for ; and I 
trust it can also be shown that its aim is commen- 
surately great ; equally great in point of goodness 
and of magnitude* 

To attempt this before a Christian audience nTay 
by some be deemed unnecessary. Alas ! that it 
were not so. We eulogize the Bible, but how much 
of this is from habit. We boast of our advantages : 
but are they not merely words of course ] Do the 
people generally realize — does the statesman real- 
ize — does even the Christian at the altar of his God 
realize the supreme felicity he enjoys, or feel the 
eminence of that moral elevation to which the Bible 
has exalted him. Basking in the sunshine of gos- 
pel ordinances, and having never groped amid that 



ERA OF ORAL COMMUNICATION. 243 

frightful darkness which elsewhere overshridows the 
nations, we measure not the distance which separ- 
ates the pagan from the Christian, nor appreciate 
what a wretched, friendless, hopeless world this earth 
had been without the light of Divine revelation. 

To this light is owing whatever of benignity of 
manners, ivhatever of elevation of character, what- 
ever of sublimity of morals or purity of faith the 
world exhibits. 

In travelling along the track of ages, scarcely a 
monument of mercy or a deed of glory appears to 
rescue from infamy the fame, and from oblivion the 
memory of successive generations, which is not di- 
rectly or indirectly referable to the influence of that 
revelation imbodied in the Bible, By the revelation 
imbodied in the Bible, I mean all the communica- 
tions made by God to man, from the first intimation 
of his law in the Garden of Eden, to the last splen- 
did discoveries of his grace in the island of Patmos. 

Late, indeed, were inscribed the first pages of 
this sacred book : a book which, amid the wrecks 
of art and the revolutions of empire, it hath pleased 
God to preserve entire. The commencement of 
its inscription, however, was not the commencement 
of the revelation which it contains. An era of oral 
communication preceded that of the written word. 
As the human race was in its origin confined to a 
single family, and the first revelations were made to 
the heads of that family, the direct benefits thereof 
were coextensive with the race itself. As, again, its 
members increased and spread, they each became 
a medium of conveyance through which these then 



244 EARLY LONGEVITY OF MAN. 

unwritten oracles of truth were carried to distant 
regions, and handed down to succeeding genera- 
tions. 

The longevity of man in the first ages favoured 
this method of transmission. Few, indeed, were 
the links in that chain of descent which connected 
the family of Moses with the family of Adam. A 
single individual might have communicated the say- 
ings of the senior inhabitant of Eden to the senior 
surviver of the flood. With each of these venera- 
ble personages, it was the lot of Methusaleh to have 
lived contemporary ; and thus an authentic history 
of the world could have been furnished, reaching 
through a lapse of more than seventeen centuries : 
during which period, and through faith in God's un- 
vi^ritten testimony, Enoch was translated, and Abel 
crowned with martyrdom. 

Even amid that wide-spread dissoluteness of man- 
ners and abandonment of principle which preceded 
and produced the deluge, the true religion was pre- 
served by Noah and the pious of his household. 
Those infidels, his contemporaries, who had lost the 
knowledge and forsaken the worship of the God of 
their fathers, were swept from the earth as one 
brushes dust from off* his garment, and the race 
was again reduced to a solitary family : a family, 
however, instructed in the events of antediluvian 
history ; made the depository of early and sacred 
tradition, and retaining within itself a knowledge of 
the origin and end of that multitude who had so 
miserably perished. 

To receive this family, the Mountain of Ararat 



THE FLOOD. 245 

lifted its head above the waters ; whence, as from 
another Eden, Shem, and Ham, and Japheth went 
forth to repeople the desolate earth, and to re-estab- 
lish the worship of the true God upon it. From one 
or the other of these favoured individuals, the mill- 
ions now alive have derived their being. The Gen- 
tiles, therefore, must have been originally conversant 
with revelation — with the same revelation that we 
now possess ; and which, after being enlarged and 
perfected, was imbodied in the Bible : a revelation 
competent to make, and which has made as many 
as have preserved and obeyed it, wise unto eternal 
life. 

To what extent the Jrue religion was thus spread, 
or how long, and in what degree of purity it was pre- 
served, we know not. But we do know, that as late 
as the time of Abraham, the courts of Pharaoh, king 
of Egypt, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, retained 
the knowledge, were familiar with the institutions, 
and acknowledged the authority of Jhe same invisi- 
ble Being v»^ho was worshipped by the father of the 
faithful. And we also know, that when he returned 
from the pursuit of Chederlaomer, even in the vi- 
cinity of Sodom, he passed through Salem, a city of 
righteousness, and there received the benediction of 
a priest of the most high God. How many such 
cities of righteousness the world at that time con- 
tained, we are not informed ; nor, considering the 
brevity of sacred history, is it to be expected that we 
should be. But we may well suppose that the un- 
written revelation which had accomplished thus 
much may have accomplished much more ; for, as 



246 EARLY REVELATION. 

we have said, there were but few links in the chain 
of descent between the first man and the first inspired 
writer ; and those links are ail known. Thus Mo- 
ses might have conversed with Kohath ; Kohath with 
Jacob ; Jacob with Abraham ; Abraham with Shem ; 
Shem with Methusaleh, and Methusaleh with Adam. 

Had the genealogy of other nations been kept 
with the same exactitude, and reported with the same 
fidehfy, doubtless many additional channels of tradi- 
tionary knowledge, and, perhaps, equally unexcep- 
tionable, had been afforded. 

It is evident, therefore, from the longevity of man 
and the condition of society in the first ages, that, 
whatever just ideas of God were entertained, what- 
ever hallowed sentiments of devotion were cherish- 
ed, whatever acts of practical goodness were exhib- 
ited, all these may have resulted from revelations 
made to Adam, repeated to Noah, and transmitted 
to his descendants. 

But if, from the longevity of man and the condi- 
tion of society in. the first ages, this may have been 
the case, from other indubitable facts it is obvious 
that it must have been so. 

Similarity of ceremonies and institutions, of points 
of doctrine and forms of devotion, between the Isra- 
elites and the other ancient nations, evinces not only 
a common origin, but that they ail derived the great 
constituent parts of their worship, as well as the es- 
sential articles of their belief, from the same pure 
source — the revelation of God. 

Nor is this mere assumption. That the world 
v/as created in six days ; that the human race sprung 



REVELATION AND TRADITION. 247 

from a single paT ; that their primeval state was holy 
and happy ; that they apostatized from God ; that 
misery followed, and that their whole posterity, with 
the exception of Noah and his family, were destroy- 
ed by a flood : these are truths of revelation with 
which the records of all antiquity are replete. They 
are replete, too, with direct and solemn recognitions 
of the institution of marriage, of the Sabbath as a day 
of rest, and of sacrifice as a propitiation for sin.* 

* The ancient Hindus, according to Strabo, declared that the 
world was made; that it will have an end ; that God made it; 
that he governs it ; and that he pervades the universe. The 
ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Phcsnicians, Greeks, and Romans 
held nearly the same doctrines. 

In the Orphic Hymns it is thus written : " Regard steadily the 
Maker of the world. He is one ; he is self-existent : fro;ii him 
all things sprung. Surrounding the whole universe with his 
present energy, no mortal sees him : he alone sees all things." 

Maximus Tyrius declares that it is the universal opinion of 
mankind that there is one God ; and Sophocles, that God is one, 
and only one, and that he made all things. 

" The Spirit of God moved upon the waters," says Moses, 
" The world was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguisha- 
ble, till the self-existent God dispelled the gloom," says Menu, 
son of Brahma. 

Sanchoniathon styles the wind which breathed on the original 
chaos the voice of the mouth of Jehovah. Thales says that the 
night was older than the day ; and Ovid, that at first, when cha- 
os existed, the sun was not, nor the moon. 

Sanchoniathon asserts that the first parents of mankind sprang 
from che earth ; being one male and one female. 

Homer and Hesiod agree that man was formed from the earth ; 
and Euripides adds, that the spirit returns to heaven, whence it 
was derived. 

Plato says, " In the days of old there flourished a divine nature 
in the first man ; and the likeness of man to Goa consists in this, 
that man be holy. After the father of the universe beheld his 
work, he rejoiced therein. He willed that all things should be 
good. It was not fitting that he who is the best good, should 
make anything but what was perfect. Then God fed and gov- 
erned men himself, as riien now feed and govern themselves. 
They fed on the fruits of trees, as the earth spontaneously sup« 



248 REVELATION AND TRADITION. 

Whence had the Gentiles these things ? Did dif- 
ferent nations, and kindred, and tongues, and people, 

plied them without culture. They were naked also, and passed 
their time in the open air, reposing on the verdant herbs." The 
cause of vice, he adds, is from our first parents. 

Eurysus says that God made man in his own image ; and Ca 
tuUus affirms the corruption of the race, after they had lost their 
original righteousness, to have been generally believed. 

Hesiod declares that the first mortals were of a serene and 
quiet spirit ; that the next generation or sort of men were of a 
bad moral character; that they destroyed each other by acts of 
violence, and that Jupiter hid them. 

Berosus, the Chaldean, says that there were ten generations 
before the flood ; and he states, as do also Manetho, Hieronymus, 
and Hesiod, that in the first age the life of man was a thousand 
years. 

An ark, in allusion to Noah's preservation, was introduced 
into the religious riles of many pagan nations. The dove, which 
announced the subsidmg of the waters, was held to be a sacred 
bird ; while the raven, which returned not, was accounted a bircJ 
of ill omen. 

The bow, the token of the covenant spoken of by Moses, wa* 
revered for ages. To this covenant Hesiod alludes : he calls it 
the great oath, and says it was placed in the heavens as a sign 
to mankind. 

Berosus, the Chaldean, affirms that, at the time of the flood, 
men fled to the top of a mountain in Armenia ; and Abidenus, 
that birds were repeatedly sent out of the ark, and that, the third 
time they returned, their feet were marked with mud. 

Three generations after the flood, says Melo, Abraham was 
born; and he had a son Isaac, whom he was about to sacrifice, 
when a ram was substituted in his place. 

Hesiod says the seventh day is a sacred day ; Homer the 
same ; and Theophilus of Antioch affirms that it is a day which 
all mankind celebrate. Porphyry states that the Phoenicians 
consecrated one day in seven as holy ; Linus, that a seventh day 
is observed among holy people ; Lucian, that the seventh day is 
given to boys as a holyday. 

Eusebius asserts that almost all philosophers and poets ac- 
knowledge the seventh day as holy ; Clemens Alexandrinus, 
that the Greeks, as well as the Hebrews, observe the seventh day 
as holy ; and Josephus, that no city, either of the Greeks or barba- 
rians, can be found which does not acknowledge a seventh day's 
rest from labour. Plato affirms that the seventh day is a festival 
to every nation ; Tibullus, that the seventh day, which is kept 
hob by the Jews, is a festival to the Roman women ; and Sue 



INSTITUTION OF SACRIFICE. 249 

Without concert and without motive, stumble on the 
septenary division of time ? Did the inhabitants of 
the world, by mere accident, all concur in resting 
from their labours on the very day on which its 
Maker rested from his ? 

The institution of sacrifice also forces upon the 
mind a similar interrogatory. Sacrifice, so frequent, 
so extensive, vv^hence did it arise ? Was it the ef- 
fect of chance ? Was it from caprice 1 Or did 
speculation, in regard to everything else so change- 
ful and so contradictory, in this, uniform and univer- 
sal as the laws of nature, guide nations of every 
temperament, and inhabiting every clime, to the 
same grand result, the hope of expiating their 

SINS BY THE BLOOD OF VICTIMS SHED IN SACRI- 
FICE ? 

Had the solemnities of the altar no assignable 
origin ? Had they no intelligible significance 'i Or 
did they not rather originate in the mandate of Je- 
hovah, and express as a symbol, and contain as an 
envelope, that great mystery hid for ages — the mys- 
tery of godhness — God manifest in the flesh ? which 
envelope was removed when the veil of the second 
temple was rent ; and the significancy of which 
symbol was announced when the cross of Calvary 

tonius states that Diogenes, the grammarian, used to dispute at 
Rhodes on the Sabbath-day. 

The ancient Celtae, the Hindus, and the Arabians computed 
time by weeks ; and Dion Cassius affirms that all the world learn* 
ed thus to reckon time from the Eg-yptians. Isidorus states 
that the ancient Romans computed time in this way ; and He-^ 
rodotus asserts that this method of computation was very an* 
cient.— (See Panoplist for 1810-11, Shuckford's Connexions, 
and Asiatic Researches.) 

u 



250 TRADITION J'OUNDED ON REYELAflON. 

was lifted up, imbued with the blood of the last 
great sacrifice — the Lamb of God, thai taketh away 
the sins of the ivorld. 

That these institutions existed among the nations 
is undeniable ; and if they did not exist from the 
beginning, and the commandment of God did not 
give rise to them, when were they first introduced, 
and what was the object of their introduction ? The 
records of what historian indicate the one ? the dog- 
mas of what philosopher reveal the other ? Of no 
one, Here antiquity is silent, or speaks only to con- 
fess its ignorance. If you doubt this, let the ancient 
sages be consulted. They will tell you that it was 
neither reason nor the authority of the wise, but 
tradition, which gave to them their doctrines and 
their institutions.^ 

Thus did revelation, even while unwritten, restrain 
and guide the researches of the wise, direct towards 
heaven the ho[jes of the humble, and for ages pre- 

* Plato, in his Philebus, sa3^s : " Tiie tradition which I have ' 
had concerning the unity of God, his essence, and the plurahty 
of his perfections and decrees, was from the ancients, who were 
better than the Grecians, The Grecians received their learn- 
ing from the ancients, who lived nearer the gods." 

What is Plato, exclaimed Numenius, on reading his works, 
but Moses speaking in Greek? Plato had learned the unity of 
God from Pythagoras ; the immortahty of the soul from The* 
recydes. But these revered sages, as well as Orpheus, and 
Linus, and Musseus, if we may believe what is said of them, 
rested the truths they delivered upon tradition, and not upon 
the deductions of human reason. And, so long as the light of 
tradition was followed, mankind entertained more just ideas of 
God and of duty than prevailed among them in later times: 
ideas in many respects accordant with the sacred writings. 
The history of the ancient Greeks, of the Persians, of the Ara«» 
bians, of the Chinese, and of the Hindus, proves inconti.&titJy 
tViis surprising truth. — See Panoplist for July, 1810, p. eX 



TRADITION SUCCEEDED BY PHILOSOPHY. 251 

3erve from atheism and idolatry no inconsiderable 
portion of the human family. 

The articles of ancient faith, while they were tra- 
ditionary, retained something of the unction of that 
Spirit which dictated to the progenitors of mankind 
the original creed from which these articles were de- 
rived. Although the systems adopted were in many 
particulars fabulous, still, amid their fable, some 
grand truths were apparent ; some traces of wisdom 
and sublimity, which sufficiently distinguish these 
venerable compilations from those degraded and de- 
grading theories which mere human reason has 
since palmed upon the world. For, no sooner had 
philosophy extinguished the lamp of tradition, than 
an impenetrable gloom settled over the temple and 
the altar, through which there has since gleamed 
only a portentous light, which, like the meteor's 
glare, has everywhere " led to bewilder, and dazzled 
to blind." 

This claim, set up for the exclusive influence of 
revelation in the production of whatever there has , 
been of sublimity of faith or purity of morals among 
the nations — is it disputed? Let facts then be appeal- 
ed to ; and facts are not wanting : facts which bear 
directly and conclusively on the point in question; 
for, in process of time, the whole world, the Israel- 
ites alone excepted, lost the knowledge, and disre- 
garded the sanctions of revealed truth. Out of 
Judea, where the sacred traditions were imbodied 
and their records deposited, the human race were no 
longer influenced by them. Here, then, mere hu- 
man intellection found an opportunity to display its 



252 CRUELTIES OF HEATHEN WORSHIP. 

resources and exert its strength. Mark the issue* 
Be it what it may, it definitively settles the compar- 
ative merits of faith and reason, of revelation and 
philosophy. 

Where are those productions of human intellec- 
tion to be found which may be put in competition 
with the sacred oracles ? What system of ethics 
is there so pure in its doctrines, so sanctifying in its 
influence as that of the Law and the Prophets'? 
What nation can boast a faith so subhme, a worship 
so spiritual, as that which signalized the land of the 
patriarchs ? 

Is it Egypt 1 Egypt is, indeed, renowned for her 
sages and philosophers, her arts and literature. 
Greece even borrowed letters from the schools of 
the Nile. But her religion. To say nothing of 
the spotted calf at Memphis, or the sacred ox at 
Heliopolis, regarded as divinities, what think you of 
an erudite and polished people paying religious hom- 
age to cats, to dogs, to wolves, and to crocodiles ? 
What think you of pools and pastures kept sacred 
to their accommodation ; of a tithe imposed for their 
maintenance ; of a priesthood set apart for their re- 
ligious rites 1 And, finally, what think you of death 
inflicted for the smallest insult offered to these four- 
footed deities, these fleecy wanderers of the fields, 
or finny monsters of the waters ?* My God ! is it 
possible? It is. Such was ancient Egypt. Her 
history, her antiquities, her temples, her pyramids — 
the very monuments which attest her intellectual 
glory, preserve the evidence also of her moral deg* 
radation. 

* Ant. Univer. Hist^^ fol, vcl. i., book i.. c.haj) Hi. 



CRUELTIES OF HEATHEN WORSHIP. 253 

Is it PhcEnicia, then ? Ah ! it was at Phoenicia 
where were heard the shrieks of children sacrificed to 
Saturn! At Carthage, then? Here, too, the grim* 
Moloch stood, extending his burning arms to enfold 
the immolated infant. 

Where next ? India, perhaps, will afford a more 
benign prospect. We have heard of the wise men 
of the East. But they are not at Orissa ; they are 
not in Bengal. The ghastly visages of the famished 
pilgrims assembled there, evince that the temple they 
frequent is the abode of some malignant demon, and 
not the temple of the God of mercy. No ; it is 
not in India that a pure faith and a spiritual worship 
are to be found. From the coast of Malabar to the 
banks of the Ganges, the flame flares terrific from 
the widow's funeral pyre. Graves open to swallow 
up the living, not the dead ; and even the sacred 
Indus, along whose margin so many devotees assem- 
ble — even this sacred river bears away to the croc- 
odiles and the sharks many a shrieking victim whom 
an accursed superstition consigns to its waters.* 
At Thibet, too, a no less detestable superstition 
reigns ; and the fact that, in the single city of Pe- 
kin, more than three thousand infants are annually 
exposed to die, sufficiently acquaints us with the 
moral state of China.f 

Let us, then, visit Greece. The Greeks were a 
polished nation, and yet not even barbarians were 
more barbarous in regard to religion. 

* Ryan on Religion, p. 54 ; also Researches in Asia, by Clau- 
dius Buchanan. 

•j- Gibbon's Rom. Empire, chap, xv. Puffendorf, de jure nat* 
et Gen., lib. vi. Rvan, sec. iii., p. 253. 

Y 



254 CRUELTIES OF HEATHEN WORSHIP 

History informs us that Themistocles sacrificed 
his Persian captives to conciliate the favour of the 
*gods. At Salamis, a man was immolated to the 
daughter of Cecrops ; one also at Chios, another at 
the temple of Diomede, and three at the temple of 
Juno, In Arcadia, even, there stood an altar to 
Bacchus, on which young females were beaten to 
death with rods. 

Achilles butchered twelve Trojan captives at the 
funeral of Patroclus. A similar act of devotion was 
performed by the far-famed -Sneas of Troy to the 
manes of Pallas. Indeed, it was a common custom 
of the Greeks, before a war, to propitiate their gods 
by human sacrifices. On one of these occasions 
Aristomenes offered three hundred human victims to 
Jupiter ; and Italy was supposed to have been visi- 
ted by calamity because a tenth part of its inhabi- 
tants had not been sacrificed to the gods.* 

In the worship of the Greeks — nay, in pagan 
worship generally — obscenity forms as prominent a 
feature as cruelty : obscenity so gross, so public, so 
brutal, that the delicacy of a Christian audience al- 
lows only of its being alluded to. And how could 
it bfe otherwise ? Is it to be expected that the wor- 
shipper should be less cruel or more chaste than the 
divinities he worships? But let the veil rest on 
this loathsome and detested part of pagan devotion. 

What shall we say, then, to these things ? Or 
where else shall we fly, to find amonjj the Gentiles a 
temple in which the worshippers assemble apart from 

♦ Plutarch's Lives. Horn., II., xxiii., 175. Virg., ^n., x., 520. 
E sebei, Praep. Evan., lib. iv., chap. viii. Ryan, 247, 8, 



PURITY OF THE JEWISH WORSHIP. 255 

scenes of licentiousness and blood ? Not the tired 
dove that went forth from the window of the ark, so 
vainly sought, amid the waters of the flood, a rest- 
ing-place for her foot. 

Again I ask, what shall we say to these things ] 
Or how comes it that, amid this universal degrada- 
tion of the species, the Jews were not degraded ? 
Plow comes it that, while so many nations were wan- 
dering in the darkness of this moral midnight, the in- 
habitants of Palestine, as if separated from the rest 
of mankind by a wall of fire, enjoyed light? For 
nearly two thousand years after the vv^orld had be- 
come idolatrous did this favoured people preserve 
the knowledge and worship of the true God. So 
stood Mount Zion as age after age rolled away ; so 
stood Mount Zion amid the moral desolation, as an- 
other Ararat amid the deluge of waters. And 
whence this proud pre-eminence? Whence? From 
the ark of God's covenant resting on its summit. 
It was not the pagan talisman, but the sacred ora- 
cles, which shed a bright radiance around this hal- 
lowed emlneiice. 

Mount Zion boasted no superiority in refinement 
or in arts. She produced no philosophers, no ora- 
tors, no tragedians. Neither the Lyceum, nor the 
Academy, nor the Forum, nor the Theatre was hers. 
But hers (ah ! enviable distinction), hers were the 
oracles of God ; hers the Shekinah that overhung 
the mercy-seat ; and hers the perpetual fire that 
burned upon the altar. Hers, too, was the hope of 
Messias, and the temple of Jehovah, whither the 
ijhosen tribes repaired to hear his law and to cele- 
brate his worship. 



256 THE HILL OF ZION. 

The facts that a sublime morality \v as inculcated, 
a spiritual devotion practised, and the unity of God 
preserved in this chosen spot during so many ages 
of calamity and darkness, sufficiently evince the 
illuminating and hallowing efficacy of those sacred 
oracles from which alone were derived these admi- 
rable results. 

Ah I had Judea been destroyed before the diffii- 
sion of mankind's last hope, the Bible, the sanctions 
of duty had ceased ; the purity of worship had 
ceased ; the example of the patriarchs had . been 
lost ; the history of the antediluvian world had been 
lost ; nay, the history of creation itself had been 
lost, and all correct ideas of the great God had per- 
ished ; and, unless restored by a second revelation, 
had perished for ever. Not the needle points the 
eye of the mariner more steadily to yon polar star, 
than does the finger of history the mind of the mor- 
alist to the hill of Zion. The hill of Zion is, as is 
shown by every page he reads, and by every monu- 
ment that he inspects, the source and centre of all 
that is pure in faith or sublime in morals. The rays 
which enlighten the firmament proceed not more 
obviously from the natural sun, than do those which 
give light to the nations from the Sun of righteous- 
ness. 

Thus far the effects of the written word in the 
land of the patriarchs and among the countrymen 
of the prophets. 

But let us take a wider range. With the coming 
of Messias (whose coining was as the lightning of 
heaven) a new era commenced. Other oracks 



ANCIENT ' ROME. 257 

were added to those already given ; God completed 
bis revelations to man ; and the Christian church 
was made the depository of the authenticated record 
in which they were imbodied. Truth now quickly 
flashed across that mighty empire of which Judea 
was a province. More than this : beyond its lim- 
its — even in the cold regions of the North, hearts 
were warmed and softened, and the distant islands 
of the sea, in the light of the Son of Man, saw light. 

But what was the condition of these unbaptized 
nations when revealed truth was first promulged 
among them ? To begin at Rome : 

Rome had succeeded to the arts and the erudition 
of Greece. Alas ! that we should be compelled to 
add, she had succeeded to her superstitions also. 
Over this vast empire — an empire where so many 
sciences were taught, where so much genius was 
elicited, where so many philosophers reasoned, 
where so many poets sung — over this vast empire, 
polytheism, with all its pollutions and all its cruelties, 
maintained undisputed dominion. A proof unan- 
swerable, if such proof were wanting, that the world 
by ivisdom knew not God. 

These things are not lightly said. Plutarch af- 
firms, that on the event of a war in Gaul, both men 
and women were buried alive, in obedience to an 
oracle. Porphyry states, that in his own time hu- 
man sacrifice was oflTered at the feast of Jupiter. 
More than this : in their own blood the priests of 
Bellona did homage to that terrific goddess ; and 
the Druids, who continued to the reign of Tiberius 
and Claudius Caesar, added torture to murder, some- 



258 ROMAN FUNERALS. 

times crucifying their victims, and at other times 
burning them alive upon the funeral pile.* 

But not to the temple and the altar were the enor- 
mities of Roman superstition confined. 

A funeral was not solemnized without carnage ; 
the theatre was not attended without carnage ; nay, 
in process of time, all Italy, and the empire itself, 
were filled with carnage and steeped in blood. 

That the dead required the same accommodation 
and attendance as the living was one of the absurd- 
ities of ancient paganism. When a distinguished 
citizen died, wine and food were buried with him for 
his sustenance ; and his wives and slaves were mas- 
sacred to attend upon his manes. Besides these, 
one friend presented his servant, another his wife, 
and a third his son or daughter, as a token of respect 
to the deceased, and to swell the number of his ret- 
inue in another world. All these fell together, and 
one grave received their remains. | 

This barbarous and most unnatural superstition, 
with the detestable practice founded on it, was adopt- 
ed by the Romans ; a practice modified, indeed, 
during the latter periods of their history, but so mod- 
ified as to lose nothing of its cruelty, since the vic- 
tims now fell by their own hands, instead of falling, 
as before, by the hands of the executioner. 

On this murderous practice another still more 
murderous was founded : that of the gladiatorial 
shows, which became so general, and were so de- 

* Plutarch's Life of Marcellus. Leland, part i., chap, vii, 
Tooke, part ii., chap. ix. Ryan, page 56. 
t Ryan, p. 215. 



GLADIATORIAL SHOWS. 259 

lightful to the Roman people. I say delightful, for, 
incredible as it may appear, these furnished the fa- 
vourite amusement of the populace, the magistrates, 
and even of the imperial Caesars.* 

On a single occasion Julius presented before the 
public three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators ; 
and at another time a thousand pairs were exhibited 
by Trajan. Even Titus solemnized the birthday 
of his brother by a show, in which two thousand 
five hundred human beings perished ; and the birth- 
day of his father was commemorated by <i similar 
tragedy. " No wars," says Lipsius, " ever made 
such havoc of mankind as these games of pleasure, 
which sometimes deprived Europe of twenty thou- 
sand lives a month." Indeed, this passion for blood 
became so ardent and so universal, that not only 
senators and knights, but even women, turned gladi- 
ators. 

The moral state of the other heathen nations fur- 
nishes no milder views to soften the horrors of this 
dismal picture. Everywhere human limbs might 
be seen bleeding on the altar, or human entrails 
quivering beneath the eye of the haruspex. 

This is no exaggeration. The Gauls offered hu- 
man sacrifice ; the Thracians offered human sacri- 
fice ; the Germans offered human sacrifice ; and, to 
add no more, the Lithuanians offered human sacri- 
fice, and imagined that they could only please the 
devil whom they worshipped by torturing their vic- 
tims before they killed them.^ 

* Ryan, p. 249. 

f Ross, Religion of all Nations, sect. v. Ryan, p. 59, 



260 THE ANCIENT BRITONS 

How was it in Britain ? in Britain, where now so 
many alms are distributed, where so much philan- 
thropy is displayed, where so many spires now 
pierce the skies, pointing the eye of man to heaven, 
and his hopes to immortality — ah ! precious fruits 
of the Christian dispensation ! — how was it in Brit- 
ain before the Bible entered there ? Go to her tem- 
ples of cruelty — to her altars of blood, and ask. 
Ask of her ferocious priests, and of her still more 
ferocious Druids. Approach her inmges sending 
forth flames, and listen to the victims within as they 
shriek and expire. Take the dimensions of that do- 
mestic felicity where children are articles of traffic ; 
where marriage is unknown ; and where whole clans 
herd together like the cattle of the stall.* 

That such was the state of Britain before the 
Bible entered it, I appeal to Collier, to Guildas, to 
Jerome, to Tacitus, and to Cjesar. Great God ! 
and did we descend from such parentage ? and are 
these the miseries from which the Bible has redeem- 
ed us ? Ah ! Book of Life ! henceforth, if I for- 
get thee, let my right hand forget her cunning : if I 
do not prize thee above my chiefest joy, let my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 

But enough of this Eastern polytheism : the heart 
is sick with contemplating it. Let us quit these 
bloodstained temples, and cross the ocean. Per- 
haps in the Western wilds we shall find some se- 
questered spot where a purer faith is cherished, a 
less sanguinary worship maintained. Alas ! though 
we cross the ocean, we only change, we do rot es- 

* Ryan, p. 251, 252, 253. Caesar, De Bel. Gal., lib, vi. 



SAVAGE TRIBES OF AMERICA. 261 

cape the scene of misery. What the Eastern con- 
tinent was, the Western is, excepting only where the 
Bible has reclaimed it — covered with idolaters. The 
sun, and the moon, and the stars, and not the Being 
who created them, receive the homage of the wild 
man. Even the infernal gods, so conspicuous in 
Grecian fable, are here acknowledged and honoured. 
The natives of Canada, of Virginia, and of the Flor- 
idas, literally worshipped the devil, to whom they 
sacrificed children to quench, as they affirmed, his 
thirst in blood. 

Through all the regions of the North, false ideas 
of God have imparted to human nature a strange 
ferocity. The infant savage learns revenge from 
the sacred rites of his father, from the nightly ori- 
sons of his mother. Cruelty grows with his growth, 
and strengthens with his strength ; until, at length, 
he inflicts torture as coolly, and drinks blood as 
greedily as the imaginary demons whom he worships. 

As we descend along the isthmus towards the 
south, we discover monuments of art, but none of 
mercy. 

In New-Spain the hearts of men were offered to 
the sun, and youths of both sexes drowned, to bear 
this idol company. When the corn first vegetated, 
young children were slain to ensure its growth ; and 
it was afterward twice watered with the same blood 
before the harvest. Here, too, the domestics of a 
chief were interred in the same tomb with thei'* rn-^-. 
ter ; and the manes of a prince were followed to the 
other world by a still larger retinue.* 

♦ Ross, sec. iii. Ryan, p. 200, 216, 222. 



262 MEXICAJ^S AJND PERUVIANS. 

On the event of the King of Cholulah's death, i^ 
human heart, riven from some living bosom, was by 
the high-priest offered to the sun ; and for the or- 
dinar.y sacrifices of this place alone, and for a sin- 
gle year, dve thousand children were deemed in- 
sufficient.* 

Mexico presents a siill more bloody spectacle. 
Here every captive, without exception, was sacri- 
ficed. New wars were undertaken to obtain new 
victims ; and in a time of peace, their gods were 
said to be perishing with hunger. As late as 1486, 
sixty-four thousand and eighty human beings were 
sacrificed by Ahuitzol, king of Mexico ; and the or- 
dinary victims of the altar cost the empire twenty 
thousand lives a year.| 

Even the Peruvians, the mild and amiable Peru- 
vians, sacrificed the subject for the health of the sov- 
ereign while living, and, when dead, an ample retinue 
was supplied to attend upon his manes. Their 
children they offered up to the ghosts of departed 
kindred, and often the son was slain to procure a 
respite from death for the father. J 

* Acosta's Hist. Ind., book v., chap. xx. . Ryan, p. 256. 

t At the feast of Quitzalcoult, the heart of a slave was pre 
sented by the merchants of Mexico to that idol ; and ten to the 
same idol at Cholulah. And, as if this were not enough of era 
elty, they added the ceremony of drawing blood from their own 
tongues and ears : a ceremony surpassed in madness only by 
that of the kings of Malabar, at the jubilee of the twelfth year; 
which jubilee the sovereign commenced by cutting off his nose, 
ears, and lips, and closed by cutting his throat in honour of the 
devil. Ross, sec. 3. Robertson's America, book vii. Raynal, 
vol. ii., book ii. Ryan, p. 220, 221, 223. Broughton, art. Quit- 
Ealcoult. Acosta's Hist. Ind., book v., chap. ix. Ryan, p. 255 

t Ryan, p. 226. Robertson, book vii. Ross, sec, 3. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 

But we have proceeded far enough — perhaps too 
far already, and yet but a glimpse of this abomina- 
tion of desolation has been taken. Other, and still 
other, and other rites, both of licentiousness and of 
blood, remain untold, which deserve yet severer ex- 
ecration, and which could be mentioned only in ac- 
cents of deepest-toned horror. I might conduct you 
to the temple in which — but I forbear. As has been 
already said, let the veil rest on these enormities. 

And now, over what a wilderness of crime and 
folly we have travelled : a wilderness which, for cen- 
turies, revelation has, step by step, been penetrating. 
And what have been its effects ? It has everywhere 
shed the light of truth on the temple and the altar ; 
and along its whole line of march has left its sacred 
impress on the moral map of nations. 

Never were materials more stubborn and refrac- 
tory than were those on which, at the commence- 
ment of the Christian era, revelation was called to 
operate. But these materials, hard and unyielding 
as they were, it melted, it refined, it remoulded. The 
temper, the manners, the habits, the pursuits, the in- 
stitutions — nay, the very texture of society, was 
changed in every city, and province, and kingdom 
into which the Bible entered. 

It allayed the thirst for conquest ; it diminished 
the carnage of conflict ; it infused a milder spirit into 
the law of nations. Extermination was no longer 
identified with victory ; the vanquished were ac- 
knowledged to have rights, and these were respect- 
ed ; nor were prisoners of war thenceforth subjected 
to the dire alternative of massacre or vassalage. 



264 EFFECTS DF CHRISTIANITY. 

Ancient slavery it abolished ; modem slavery it 
is fast abolishing ; and the trade itself — that accursed 
traffic in the muscles and the blood of man — is ver- 
ging to its close, and will, ere long, cease to be the 
reproach of Christendom. 

By one wise statute it terminated polygamy, with 
its broils and its vigils ; and suddenly the chains 
fell from the mother and the daughter, and half the 
species emerged from the vilest degradation. By 
another, it put an end to the exposure of children, 
their desertion by parents, and the abandonment of 
the poor in their hovels of wretchedness and want, 
and on their beds of sickness and death. No soon- 
er had the gospel law of charity touched the heart, 
than mercy flowed from it. The members of the 
infant church, though few in numbers, everywhere 
stood forth the defenders of orphanage, the relievers 
of want, the moral heroes and the almoners of na- 
tions. 

It banished those gladiatorial shows which had 
so long piled the theatre with carcasses ; those hu- 
man sacrifices which had so long defiled the temple 
with blood. It banished, too, the worship of de- 
mons ; the worship of heroes and of harlots, of im- 
ages and of shrines. 

No victims now bleed (with thankful exultation 
be it spoken) — no victims now bleed on European 
altars ; no widows now burn on European pyres. 
The oracles which required such sacrifices are hush- 
ed ; the altars on which they were offered, and the 
gods they were intended to propitiate, have sunk to- 
gether in the dust, and the spiritual worship of the 
unseen Jehovah occu|)ies their place. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 

The mummery of the haruspex has ceased ; the 
mummery of the magician has ceased ; the games, 
the festivals, the vigils, the lustrums, all have ceased. 
The entire machinery of the altar and the temple, 
the oracle and the response, the groves and the high 
places ; the whole of that gigantic and tremendous 
fabric which fraud, and folly, and superstition, and 
cruelty had for ages been rearing, at the approach 
of the Bible, as if struck by the lightning of Omnip- 
otence, fell to the dust, and has been swept by the 
breath of Heaven from the face of Europe. On the 
very site of these abominations, schools of edu ation, 
asylums of mercy, and temples of grace suddenly 
arose ; and these have everywhere been the results 
of the Gospel dispensation : proud monuments, an- 
nouncing in every part of Christendom that the 
reign of demons is past, and the kingdom of JVLessias 
come. 

What a comment is this upon that song of the an- 
gels which burst on the listening shepherds on the 
night of the Saviour's advent : Behold^ I bring you 
glad tidings of great joy which shall he unto all peo- 
ple ; for unto yon is born this day in the city of Da- 
vid a Saviour, loho is Christ the Lord. 

Glad tidings indeed they were, and to all peo- 
ple ; for, far as their annunciation has reached, the 
state of things has been changed. With every en- 
largement of the church's limits, the boundaries of 
the field of moral beauty have been extended. Ex- 
amples of piety and patience, of charity and fortitude, 
have been multiplied. The character of man has 
assumed a new majesty ; for his soul, loosed from 
X 



866 EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the bonds which once confined it, and the alliancea 
by which it was degraded, has become animated by 
a heaven-directed principle, progressive in its na- 
ture, which, advancing in the track by Emanuel 
pointed out, has so raised Christian nations above 
the level of the rest of the species, that they seem 
as though descended from a different ancestry, and 
belonging to a nobler race. 

As many centuries have shed their influence on 
Asia and Africa since the commencement of the 
Christian era as on Europe. When revelation was 
first promulgated in the West, Europe, in a moral 
view, v/as no less degraded than Asia — perhaps we 
might say, than Africa itself. How happens it, 
then, that while in Europe human nature has been 
progressive, and the march of mind has advanced 
with the rapidity of lightning, in Asia and in Africa it 
has remained stationary ; or, if there has been any 
movement, that it has been only retrograde ? How 
happens it that, even at this late day, the grossest 
idolatry and the r ^ost cmel superstition pervade those 
entire regions where revelation has not yet penetra- 
ted ; that the whole mass of pagan population, the 
uncounted millions of the East and of the South, of 
the continents and of the isles, still grope in the 
profoundest darkness ; still grovel in the most bru- 
tal degradation ? 

What is it that has elevated the Gaul, the Belgi- 
an, the German, and the Briton ; that has given a 
generous impulse to the Dane and the Swede, and 
raised the Russian, even amid his snow-clad for- 
ests, so much above the wandering Tartar, who re* 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 

moves his gods as he does his flocks ; or the un- 
happy negro, who worships the very vermin, and 
even the trees which grow upon his native hiils of 
Africa ? 

There is but one answer. The whole world 
knows that it is the Bible only which has done this. 
The line which separates the light and shade in an 
eclipse is not more distinctly drawn on the disk of 
the sun, than is the line which separates Christian- 
ity from paganism on the map of nations. 

In the light of the Sun of Righteousness Chris- 
tendom enjoys light ; while the rest of the earth is 
as one vast Valley of Hinnom, over which a dark- 
ness broods that is all but tangible. The very race 
is degraded ; and the sons of God, ignorant of their 
origin and regardless of their destination, bow down 
to the earth and lick the dust. 

If the view of the world here taken be correct (and 
where is the evidence that it is not so ?), apart from 
those nations which the Bible has reclaimed, is there 
a single exception to this moral degradation ? Not 
to speak of empires, or even provinces, is there a 
town, or village, or hamlet — nay, is there a family 
on which no ray of revealed truth has fallen, that 
retains the knowledge of God, that cherishes a ra- 
tional faith, and offers to the Ruler of the universe 
a spiritual homage ? I know not of such a family : 
the civilized world is ignorant of such a family. If 
it exists, its residence is in some sequestered spot 
to which no traveller has yet penetrated ; its history 
is written in a language which no philologist has yet 
read. Beyond a doubt there is no such family ; 



268 THE BIBLE. 

and i^ there be not, then the view we have taken is 
correct ; and, being correct, the proposition with 
which we commenced this discourse is fully estab- 
lished : That ivhatever of benignity of manners^ 
whatever of elevation of character^ whatever of 
sublimity of morals or purity of faith this world ex- 
hibitSy is oiving to the Bible, 

From whencesoever these oracles were derived, 
the present state of the world — nay, the history of 
its condition in all past ages, clearly evinces, that 
they, and they alone, have power to sanctify on 
earth or qualify for heaven. And, though no retrib- 
utive justice awaited the guilty, if mankind are to 
exist after death, and in circumstances at all corre- 
spondent to their earthly tempers and habitudes, then 
must the future condition of the Christian transcend 
that of the Mexican or of the Hindu, as much as 
the exquisite touches of St. John, in his portraiture 
of the New Jerusalem, transcend the coarse daub- 
ings of the false prophet on those pages of the Ko- 
ran which he defiles with his gross picture of the 
Mussulman's paradise, devoted to licentiousness, and 
crowded with harlots. 

The Bible is the world's first, last, best, and only 
hope. Much it has accomplished already, but much 
more remains to be yet accomplished by it. 

Idolatry, with its impious, cruel, and lascivious 
rites, has been banished from the civilized states of 
Europe, and from all the settled portions of the Can- 
adas and the United States. Even the Mexican 
temples, those Golgothas that swallowed up such 
multitudes, are demolished in the valleys ; but blood, 



PRESENT HEATHEN ABOMINATIONS. 269 

ay, human blood, even now trickles from the cliffs 
where those idol temples still stand among the 
mountains of the South. In the forests of the 
West and of the North the worship of the devil is 
still maintained ; and Africa, India, Thibet, Tartary, 
and the millions of China, to say nothing of the isl- 
ands of the sea, what is their condition ? 

Ah ! could I transport you to those regions of dark- 
ness ; or, seizing the painter's pencil, could I but 
sketch a faint outline of the scenes of horror there 
acted ; could I show you, at Calcutta, the son apply- 
ing, with not even an averted eye, the lighted torch 
to the funeral pile of his living mother : at Giagas, 
the mother pounding her infant ir^ a mortar, and 
smearing her body with the horrid ointment, to pro- 
pitiate the demons that ride upon the wind, and 
shriek for the blood of children in the tempest: 
could I show you, on the banks of the Ganges, 
the father struggling to force into its depths his little 
son, still raising his supplicating eyes, and still cling- 
ing to the marble bosom of his parent — ah ! hapless 
boy ! in pagan hearts nature has left her seat, nor 
can the note even of filial anguish excite one pulsa- 
tion of compassion there : could I show you, at Su- 
matra, the son whetting his knife, and adjusting his 
festive board beneath the shadow of some death- 
boding tree, at the foot of which a decrepit father, 
shaken from its top, is about to be devoured by his 
assembled children, who, as their sire descends, join 
in this precomposed chorus, " The fruit is ripe and 
must be eaten :" could I show you, at Juggernaut, 
the wretches crushed beneath the car of that dread 



270 PRESENT HEATPIEN ABOMINATIONS. 

Moloch ; or at the feast of Ganga, that terrific queen 
riding amid her quaking worshippers, with many a 
living victim literally spiked to her triumphal seat : 
could I show you, at Pekin, the infants whose 
brains bestrew the streets, and whose unburied bod- 
ies choke the very gutters ; in the numerous cities 
of populous India, the poor that crowd the pathway 
of the traveller, in vain supplicating mercy, and trod- 
den down as if they were dying weeds instead of 
dying men* — ah! could I show you these things, 
my purpose would be accomplished. You would 
pour out your wealth in alms : more than this, you 
would pour out your hearts in. prayer, giving God 
no rest until he establish and make Jerusalem a 
praise in the earth. 

Even though there were no day of judgment — no 
hereafter — and heaven, and hell, and eternity were 
chimeras, still reason, humanity, every motive that 
can touch an enlightened and ingenuous mind, should 
impel us to send to these benighted pagans the 
Bible, that we may rescue them from the bondage 
under which they groan, and terminate the miseries 
they suffer. But, great God ! if there be an here- 
after, if there be a day of judgment, and if heaven^ 
and hell, and eternity be not chimeras, but reality — 
here my tongue falters, my heart overflows, and 
thoughts press upon me too solemn and too big for 
utterance. 

On other occasions of charity I have wept, I have 

* Mod. Univer. Hist., fol., vol. vi., chap. xiv. Ryan, p. 214, 
219. Buchanan, Res., p. 144, 145. Broughton, Art. Ganga 
Gramma. Quar. Review of Baptist Mission. 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 271 

entreated. On this I can do neither. The subject 
is too awful for tears, too authoritative for entreaty : 
and if its own inherent claims, its own tremendous 
importance does not interest, does not overwhelm 
you, nothing can. Tears would be vain, entreaties 
vain. I should tremble less for the poor pagans 
whose cause I advocate, than for the petrified audi- 
ence — the heai'ts of stone which I address. For 
then, oh ! thou Avenger of abused mercies, it would 
be manifest that we had been enlightened by thy 
gospel, and tasted thy rich grace for naught. 

The signs of the times indicate that the chariot- 
wheels of the Son of God are approaching. It is 
rumoured among the nations that the Bridegroom 
Cometh. Millions of supine Christians have sud- 
denly awoke from their slumbers. The church has 
arisen, and is girding herself, that she may hasten to 
prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths 
straight. No matter in what region we reside, nor 
whether the first object of our compassion be Jew 
or Christian, Mohammedan or pagan. The cause 
is one, the object is universal. It is the union of 
the redeemed of all nations, rising in the strength 
of their Lord and Saviour, to extend the limits of 
his reign, and multiply the subjects of his mercy. 

Those missionary invaders of the kingdom of 
darkness whom the benevolence of Christendom is 
sending forth, not, like the promulgators of the Ko- 
ran, clad in armour, rely on the omnipotence of truth 
and of the Spirit alone for success. Their weapon 
is the incorruptible word : at once the symbol and 
the seal of peace, which they carry wiih them to the 
nations. 



272 A NEW ERA COMMENCED. 

Already, since this great effort began, has the cov-^ 
enant of mercy passed by translation into many a 
pagan tongue, and to many a worshipper of idols 
has it been distributed. 

These achievements mark the commencement of 
a new era ; and if the first beams of the millennial 
morning fall so benignly on the borders of the wil- 
derness, how resplendent will be the noonday glory^ 
when those entire benighted regions shall be re- 
claimed to virtue and flooded with light ! Ah ! 
thou church of the living God, cherish the spirit 
which at length inspires thee. Let no expenditure 
exhaust thy bounty ; no divisions damp thy ardour. 
Still multiply and send abroad impressions of this 
life-giving record, till every nation, and kindred, and 
tongue, and people are supplied, and the whole earth 
is filled with the salvation of God. 

But what can we do to help forward this vast, 
this gigantic undertaking ] What ? As much, at 
least, as did that poor widow who cast her willing 
mi'ie into the Gospel treasury. 

Every drop of water that distils from the distant 
mountain top, mingles with some rivulet which de- 
scends to swell the deep and broad river that rolls 
its mighty mass into the ocean. So every oopy of 
the Word of God, whether written out with the pen 
or struck from the press, causes that hallowed stream 
to flow in a wider channel and with a more resist- 
less force, whose waters are destined to heal the 
city and the country, and to make even tlte desert 
blossom like the rose. And how cheering the 
thought, that the very volumes purchased by out 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE BIBLE AT HOME, 273 

money or distributed by our hands may chance to 
fall, Hke the dews of Lebanon, on some barren spot 
in God's moral husbandry, and convert it into a spot 
of fruitfulness and verdure. 

Let us, then, cherish the spirit and emulate the 
example of our brethren in the East. Let us be- 
stow our property as cheerfully, and bend our exer- 
tions as steadily to the advancement of the glorious 
enterprise in which, with them, we are engaged. 
Let us strive to erect a monument to the Redeemer 
of mankind on this side the ocean, no less sublime 
than has been erected by his disciples on the other ; 
nor leave to the seagirt isle alone the expense and 
honour of sending the Gospel to all nations. 

JiCt us, at least, endeavour, by a more general 
distribution of these heaven-descended records, to 
console our own mourners, to prepare our youth 
for living, and our aged for death. Let us endeav- 
our to purify our towns ; to purify our villages ; to 
raise the standard of our public morals, and exalt 
still higher our national character. In a word, let 
us endeavour completely to Clwistianize these Uni- 
ted States, that the condition of our citizens may 
be more blessed on earth, and our whole population 
made meet for an inheritance in heaven. 

What a lofty hope ! and how welcome to the 
bosom of the patriot Christian ! And shall we, hav- 
ing tasted the preciousness of this hope, lightly re- 
linquish it? Ah! no. Necessity is laid upon us. 
We have sworn, and may not repent ; we have lift- 
ed up our hand to God, and cannot go back. And 
let the thought animate us, that, by supplying our 



274 CONCLUDING EXHORTATION. 

own destitute brethren, we are indirectly aiding to 
supply the destitute pagans. Yes, every Bible we 
distribute here is, in effect, a Bible distributed in Ara- 
bia, in Egypt, in India, or in the islands of the sea ; 
for every Bible we distribute here spares the price 
of it from the common fund of Christendom, and 
leaves the same to be expended in some heathen 
country. 

Let us, then, freely put forth our exertions and 
bestow our charities ; and, though the morning dawn 
not, let us go forward confidently to our work, re- 
membering who it was that said. Surely J come 
quickly. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 



man's moral state contingent. 275 



XV. 

ILDDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SO- 
CIETY OF UNION COLLEGE. 

[Difference in the Intellectual and Moral Condition of Individ- 
uals and Nations. — Ignorance and Knowledge the principal 
Causes of this Difference. — Advantages of Associated Ktforts 
in promoting Science. — Intelligence and Happiness capable 
of being vastly extended. — First crude Discoveries in Sci- 
ence contrasted with the Progress since made —Present State 
and future Prospects of Scientific Research. — Chymistry. — 
Astronomy. — Mmeralogy and Botany. — Meteorology. — Elec- 
tricity. — Medicine. — Pohtical Science. — Popular Govern- 
ments. — The United States. — Anomaly of domestic Slavery, 
in its Origin, &c., considered. — Ameliorations in our Institu- 
tions and Laws in regard to Debtors— to Criminals. — Reli- 
gious Freedom. — Multiplicity of Religious Sects not incom- 
patible with Christian Union. — Science and Religion recipro- 
cally aid each other, and should never be disunited.] 

Of other worlds than our own, and other races 
of moral agents than ourselves, our knowledge is 
extremely limited. These are subjects on which 
reason is silent, or speaks only in conjectural ac- 
cents. Revelation, even, gives but a few brief no- 
tices of the existence or habitudes of unimbodied 
spirits. From these brief notices, however, it would 
seem rather probable than otherwise, that the original 
condition of moral agents generally has not been 
fixed, but contingent ; and that all have been permit- 
ted, under God, to weave the web of their own des- 
tiny, and severally to form, by a series of individual 
actions, their ultimate and unchanging character. 

But whether this be generally so or not, that it 
has been so with terrestrial moral agents is undeni- 
able : for, though the elements of a common nature 



876 POWER OF KNOWLEDGE, 

are apparent in the entire posterity of Adam, those 
elements have been so modified by circumstances, 
so transformed by education, as to present the ex- 
tremes of vice and virtue, of dignity and meanness 
in the human character. Nations there are whose 
march for ages has been onward and upvvard ; and 
other nations, again, who have either remained sta- 
tionary, or whose movement has been retrograde- 
Individuals too there are who seem approximating 
towards the perfection of angels ; while other indi- 
viduals are degraded almost to the condition of 
brutes, or even of demons. 

Yarious and inscrutable as may be the causes 
which have contributed to these opposite results, it 
is sufficiently apparent that ignorance is wholly in- 
compatible with improvement, and that everywhere 
alike knowledge is power. Were God, even, not 
omniscient, he would not be omnipotent ; or, if om- 
nipotent, he could not, as now, display his glorious 
attributes in those marvellous phenomena which con- 
stitute the universe, and which stand forth as the 
august expression of his joint wisdom and of might. 

It is knowledge which makes the mighty differ- 
ence between man and brute — between man and 
man. The unlettered savage of the forest is more 
muscular and fleet than the polished premier who 
wields a nation's energies, and from his closet sends 
forth a controlling influence over realms he has not 
so much as visited. 

It was knowledge which gave, and it is knowl- 
edge which upholds the dominion of man over so 
many orders of beings, superior to him in numbers 



SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATIONS. 2*77 

as wellr as in agiJity and strength : a dominion ex* 
tending with every extension of science, not only 
over animals, but over the elements, and bringing 
Nature herself into greater and greater subjection. 

But the duration of human life is too short, and 
Ihe range of individual observation too narrow for 
the acquisition of that profound knowledge, and the 
arrival at those grand results, for which faculties, in 
their nature progressive and immortal, had otherwise 
quahfied their possessor. To remedy, therefore, the 
defects which necessarily spring from the brevity of 
human life and the locality of human residence, and 
to prevent the loss of triumphs actually achieved, a 
moral organization has been resorted to, and isolated 
individuals, distant from each other, have united 
themselves into societies, supplying the want of per- 
sonal ubiquity by the distribution of their members, 
and of immortality by their continued succession. 
By such organization remote and scattered agencies 
have been combined, and the wise and good of dif- 
ferent nations and ages, who otherwise, perhaps, as 
to any permanent effect, might have lived in vain, 
have become fellow-labourers with one another ; nor 
is it too much to say, fellow-labourers with God, in 
carrying forward his grand and beneficent designs. 

As an integral portion of such an association — an 
association whose aim it is to increase human knowl- 
edge and perfect human virtue, which has extended 
its ligaments across the ocean, and the influence of 
which is felt in both hemispheres — as an integral 
portion of such an association I now address the 
members of this society. 



278 DIFFERENT STATES OF MANKIND. 

Without indulging in Utopian dreams, and mindful 
of the nature of man, as seen in the light which rev- 
elation and experience have shed upon his history ; 
without pretending to have ascertained the precise 
measure of intelligence or happiness possible to be 
attained by beings so constituted and so situated, it 
is surely neither presumptuous nor unphilosophical 
to anticipate the future existence of both these attri- 
butes through a greater extent and in a higher de- 
gree than they have hitherto existed. Nor can it be 
derogatory to scholars or statesmen to embrace this 
cheering hypothesis, and to combine their influence 
to secure to future generations its blessed reality. 

In glancing even casually over the map of na- 
tions, it is impossible not to perceive that there is a 
striking difference in regard to everything which ren- 
ders being valuable between the different branches 
of the human family. Neither man himself, nor his 
condition in enlightened Europe and America, can 
be contrasted with what they are in benighted Asia, 
or still more benighted Africa, without mingled emo- 
tions of exultation and pity. 

But were it even the case that, in the former and 
more favoured states, human nature had received 
its highest finish, and human intellect put forth its 
utmost energy, most powerful motives would still 
exist to preserve and perpetuate among civilized na- 
tions the triumphs already achieved ; and to rouse 
their barbarous neighbours to the achievement of 
similar triumphs, that the entire race might be raised 
to the highest standard of merit, and share the largest 
measure of happiness. 



INTELLECTUAL ELEVATION OF MAN. 279 

Nor will, nor ought the friends of science to re- 
mit their exertions until this shall have been accom- 
plished ; until the most degraded of the tribes of 
earth shall have become regenerate, and shall stand 
forth each one in the glories of its own Augustan 
age ; until the hills and valleys, the lakes and rivers 
of other states, as well as of Greece, shall have been 
consecrated by the slumbering genius that remains 
in each to be yet awakened ; until Attic wit and Athe- 
nian models shall everywhere appear ; until Negro- 
land shall have produced her own Granville Sharp, 
Abyssinia her Milton, Thibet her Homer, and the 
wandering Tartar's reed shall sound a note as tender 
as the shepherd's pipe, when, in olden time and in 
classic fields, the Arcadian Corydon and Thyrsis 
sung ; until all that is gross, and vulgar, and revolt- 
ing shall disappear, and not cities and provinces 
merely, or even empires, but the entire world shall 
exhibit through all its territories whatever is tasteful 
in art, recondite in science, or enchanting in elo- 
quence and song. 

True, we cannot reach directly the distant and 
scattered elements of ignorance and degradation, 
nor can we bring our influence immediately to bear 
on the process of their transformation. Still we 
may do both indirectly and remotely. 

Every collegiate institution, with its associate 
alumni, is the source and centre of a mighty influ- 
ence, which is sent abroad, not only over the scien- 
tific, but the unlettered public — an influence which 
reaches in its course every academy and school, and 
even every habitation — inspiring genius, stimulating 



280 INFANCY OF SCIENCE. 

enterprise, and supplying motives and means through 
many a town and hamiet for assailing ignorance, 
vindicating truth, and extending the empire of learn- 
ing and refinement. So that the measures we are 
adopting, and the strength we are putting forth, may, 
after acting on successive individuals, reach to re- 
mote places, descend to future generations, and 
finally be felt to the extremities of the world. 

Let us not deceive ourselves as to the amount, 
either of good or evil, which may be produced by a 
single scholar, especially by a society of scholars. 
It is wholly impossible to measure the power, to 
trace the connexions, or to fix the Hmits, either in 
duration or extent, of moral causes. 

To the laboratory of Tubal-Cain, Europe and 
America may be indebted for their chymistry ; to 
the harp and organ of Jubal for their instruments of 
music ; to Noah for their navigation, and to Belus 
for the art of masonry. To the astrologers of 
Egypt or the shepherds of Shinar, mankind may re- 
motely owe the calculations of La Place — nay, even 
the astronomy of Newton. But for the signs of 
the zodiac and other sidereal localities, so fancifully 
sketched by the first eager observers, the eye of 
this sublime inquirer might never have been direct- 
ed upward, and the whole energy of his mighty mind 
might have been wasted, as had been the energy of 
so many other great minds, on essential forms and 
occult qualities. 

Who can tell how much Athens was indebted to 
Phoenician voyagers, or how long the genius of 
Greece might have slumbered, but for the alphabet 



THE SPREAD OF KNOWLEDGE. 281 

of Cadmus ? or whether even G reece herself, dis- 
membered and trodden down by her enemies, shall 
continue, as she has done, to form the taste of nations, 
and to send forth an influence to bear on the moral 
destinies of the world 1 And since Greece, dismem- 
bered and trodden down as she is, still struggles for 
existence, and science and the arts have pervaded 
or are pervading France, and Spain, and Portugal, 
and Italy, and Germany, and Russia, and Sweden, 
and Denmark, and Britain, and last, though not 
least, the young American republics ; since com- 
merce is furnishing a universal medium of inter- 
course, and the ^ress is everywhere supplying facil- 
ities for instruction, is it extravagant to anticipate 
that a redeeming spirit may, and will, ere long, go 
forth from civilized nations of sufficient power to ef- 
fect the wished-for deliverance of nations still in a 
state of barbarism 1 

This were a truly sublime achievement : though 
exertion here ceased and progression here termina- 
ted, this were a triumph possessing enough of good- 
ness and of grandeur to stay the eye of hope and 
to stimulate the eagerness of enterprise. 

But is there anything, either in the nature of man 
or in the history of the world, which favours the 
opinion that all which is attainable has been attain- 
ed, even by educated nations ] and that, to them, 
nothing remains but to retrace the circle already 
traced, by the landmarks planted by the pioneers of 
science as they have advanced along their adventu- 
rous and unbeaten pathway ? Is it to be believed 
that even schooled reason has so soon come to know 
Y 



282 MODERN DISCOVERIES. 

all of God that is knowable, and that the whole field 
of glories spread around him has been so quickly and 
so cheaply gathered ? This appalling apprehension 
may, perhaps sometimes does, cross the mind of 
aspiring youth, as their eye glances on the heights 
already gained, and the distance already passed over 
in the march of science. But the illusion quickly 
vanishes ; for it is perceived that everywhere the 
boundary recedes as the inquirer advances towards 
it, and that discoveries made, however great, have 
hitherto only prepared the way for discoveries still 
greater. The time is yet distant, it is believed, 
when nothing will he left in religion to he 'purified ; 
nothing in the remedial system to he improved ; no- 
thing in political institutions to he reformed, and no^ 
thing in the physical sciences to he acquired. 

Great, indeed, is the disparity between the con- 
jectural alchymy of the middle ages and our pres- 
ent inductive chymistry, founded on actual and ac- 
curate analysis. The phenomena of light, and heat, 
and electricity, and magnetism, as well as of bodies 
gross and ponderable, are now incalculably better 
understood than they were formerly. Earth, and 
air, and water, once regarded as uncompounded el- 
ements, are now resolved and recombined at pleas- 
ure. New distinctions have been made, a classifi- 
cation more conformable to nature has been substi- 
tuted, and a nomenclature more intelligible and sig- 
nificant has been introduced. More than this : gal- 
vanic electricity has been discovered, the alkalis 
have been analyzed, and the doctrine of chymical 
equivalents has been established. 



FUTURE DISCOVERIES. 283 

Much, however, as science owes to Berzelius, to 
Davy, to Wollaston, to Guy Lusac, and their coadju- 
tors, shall we be so weak as to imagine that they 
are the only wise men, and that wisdom will die with 
them ? Who knows but that discoveries are now 
making which will cast a shade over even theirs, 
admirable as they are ? Who knows but that some 
bolder and more fortunate experimenter is even now 
unsettling doctrines hitherto believed to be settled, 
and is displacing by solution from the rank they oc- 
cupy, not only potassium and sodium, but the entire 
kindred class of metallic bases ? Who knows but 
that a more condensed heat brought to bear upon 
the crucible, or the electric stroke from some more 
powerful battery, may not reveal to the sense of man 
still simpler elements and more subtile combina- 
tions, by which the artists of future times shall be 
enabled to approximate, in their humble imitations, 
nearer to those matchless fabrics which God pro- 
duces in his vast laboratory ? Nor will analysis have 
reached its utmost limits until all the elements which 
Omnipotence employs are known and named, and 
all the processes are revealed by which, in variety so 
changeful, he produces those endless forms both of 
utility and beauty, which perpetually succeed each 
other throughout the entire extent of a decaying and 
reviving universe. 

Astronomy, indeed, so far as mathematics are 
concerned, is among the exact and certain sciences . 
and so precisely have the magnitudes and densities 
of the sun and planets been ascertained ; so accurate- 
ly have their paths been traced, and their motions 



284 PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY. 

noted ; so exactly has the influence even of their re- 
ciprocal disturbing forces been computed, that their 
several revolutions and localities may be determined 
by calculation for ages to come with nearly the 
same precision that they have been by observation 
during ages that are past. 

But these, perhaps, are neither the whole nor the 
most interesting phenomena which the heavens ex- 
hibit ; and, after having become familiar with the 
bolder lines of their outward aspect, man still looks 
upward with an eager eye, under the influence of a 
vague presentiment that the firmament above him 
contains something more than a mere orderly dis- 
play of magnitude and motion, and that the orbs 
which roll in it may perchance be the residence of 
some race of kindred spirits : spirits, it may be, 
whose acuter vision or more powerful glasses ena- 
ble them to look down on us, regardful of our prog- 
ress, eager to communicate their sympathies, and 
impatiently waiting for the time when our improved 
instruments shall enable us to recognise their signal, 
and to give back by telegraph from our sidereal 
watch-towers the signs of recognition. 

Much that was once unseen, has been already 
rendered visible ; and since the same light that falls 
on them is reflected upon us, and the light that falls 
on us is reflected back to them, who knows but some 
future and greater Herschel may construct an eye- 
glass of power to bring their habitations within our 
range of vision, and thus enable man to commence 
a correspondence with his sidereal neighbours ? 
Who knows but that future generations, communica- 



CONJECTURES AS TO THE FUTURE. 285 

ting with the nearest planets, and, through them, with 
planets more remote, may effect an interchange of 
tidings, passed from world to world with the celerity 
of light, and carried far as the sunbeam travels ? and 
that thus successive glories may be revealed, till our 
race, improved in knowledge and purified in affec- 
tion, shall be prepared to respond in a loftier sense 
to the sentiment expressed from every sun and plan- 
et. Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God 
Almighty ^ in wisdom hast thou made them all. 

These may seem idle and extravagant conjec- 
tures, and yet be conjectures below the elevation 
of the subject, and short of that reahty which futurity 
shall reveal. 

Had the ascertained grandeurs which astronomy 
has made apparent been suggested to patriarchal 
man, who probably saw in the firmament above 
him oniy a spangled canopy, revolving at no great 
distance around this one fixed, central planet, 
would they not have seemed conjectures as idle 
and extravagant? And if, during the first six 
thousand years of their existence, the human race 
have found means to acquire a knowledge of the 
number, and distance, and dimensions, and localities 
of the planets which surround them, is it quite in- 
credible that they should, in some hundreds of 
thousands of years to come, find means to acquire 
a knowledge of their zoology and botany, and of 
the condition and habitudes of the beings who in- 
habit them ? 

There has been, I am aware, a time when it 
would have been deemed impious to suggest that 



286 LAWS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 

such might be the duration of the world, or such 
the destiny of the race inhabiting it ; for there was 
a time when religion, unmindful of the apostolic 
counsel and of prophetic calculation, saw in the 
everyday appearance of the heavens omens only of 
immediate dissolution. 

Philosophy, too, has given countenance to the 
same delusion, by asserting that the solar system 
contained within itself a principle of destruction, 
which was hastening its end by approaches that 
were visible. But that time has now gone by. 
Religion having purified her faith, and Philosophy 
corrected her deductions, Science no longer sup- 
plies arguments against even that endurance of the 
earth which St. John, in the Apocalypse, has been 
thought to predict : it having been shown in the 
JVLechanique Ccdeste that those apparent deviations 
which filled the mind with such gloomy presages 
were apparent only, and that the forces which pro- 
duced them were so adjusted by the Maker of the 
universe as to compensate at intervals the irregu- 
larities they occasioned, and thus bring back the 
planets to the same relative position in a readjusted 
system. 

Nor is it in astronomy only that room for new 
achievements and motives for new efforts remain. 
The downward series of combinations is, for aught 
we know, as continuous as the upward, and its neth- 
ermost limit as far removed from human observa- 
tion. The minimum of nature is as difficult of as- 
certainment as the maximum, and perhaps as many 
wonders are yet concealed by nearness and minute- 
ness as by distance and dimension. 



MINERALOGY AND BOTANY. 287 

After all that Linnaeus and Jussieu, Werner and 
Hauy, have accomplished, mineralogy and botany 
are only in their infancy. Countries yet remain to 
be traversed, caverns to be explored, and beds of 
rivers and basins of seas to be examined, before 
the materials can be supplied for completing even 
the distribution of the genera and species. But is 
the completion of the genera and species all that re- 
mains to tempt and recompense the skill of the 
artist and the eye of the observer ? No : nor will 
the triumphs either of art or intellect be complete 
in these departments, till the internal structure both 
of plants and minerals shall have become as famil- 
iar as their external aspects ; till the true atomic 
theory shall be exhibited in experiment and verified 
by observation ; till, by a more skilful arrangement 
of glasses and a more dexterous management of 
sunbeams, visibility shall be imparted to elemental 
particles, and the arrangement shown which they 
assume in all those tasteful and brilliant varieties of 
vegetable development, and the no less tasteful and 
brilliant varieties of crystalline formations. 

With respect to ratn, and snow, and earthquakes, 
and tempests, and the various meteorological phe- 
nomena, we possess little more than hypothesis. 
The observations remain yet to be made, the facts 
to be collected, and the conclusions drawn, by which 
anything can be arrived at deserving the name of 
knowledge. And yet the time may come when 
these various, and changeful, and apparently capri- 
cious phenomena shall be reduced to fixed and gen- 
eral laws ; and their return, and duration, and de- 



288 THE REMEDIAL SYSTEM. 

gree shall be as capable of calculation as the ebbing 
of the tides or the changes of the lunar phases ; 
so that the voyager and husbandman, relieved from 
uncertainty and no longer the sport of chance, shall 
pursue their occupations under the additional advan- 
tage of an enlightened prescience. 

We have hved to see the lightning chained, and 
its dread stroke averted from the frail edifice reared 
for human habitation. We have lived to see the 
ship made independent of the breeze, riding tri- 
umphant on the billow, and breasting the tempest 
by the impulse of steam. We have lived to see 
inland villages converted into ports of commerce, 
and inland products floating on artificial rivers traced 
by human hands, and connecting distant lakes with 
the distant ocean. These are achievements which 
must ensure celebrity to individuals, and render 
memorable the age they lived in. But what farther 
achievements yet remain to be accomplished we 
know not ; for who can set limits to science ? or 
say that posterity will not employ still mighfier 
agents, and obtain the mastery over elements which 
now only mock our efforts to control them ? 

In the healing art, nay, in the whole remedial 
system, progression is apparent. 

For the relief of the deaf and dumb, a language 
has been invented and a system of education intro-* 
duced, which, in a single age and during the existing 
generation, has produced the most admirable re- 
sults. Suddenly has a portion of the human fam^ 
ily, hitherto degraded by their ignorance, and nearly 
excluded by their condition from human intercourse, 



EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB. 28% 

been raised to the rank of intellectual beings ; in- 
troduced to the mysteries of science, to the mys- 
teries of religion, and to a participation in the de- 
lightful sympathies and charities of social life. 

This benevolent expedient, while imparting hap- 
piness, has evolved talent ; talent under very pecu- 
liar circumstances, the remote effects of which can- 
not now be estimated ; for the situation of educated 
mules, insensible to the allurements of sound and in- 
capable of interruption from it, must be eminently 
conducive to mental application, and especially to 
mathematical research ; nor would it be surprising 
should they hereafter cancel, by their contributions 
to science, the debt which they at present owe to 
charity. 

In the mean time, those schools, founded for their 
benefit, are diffusing the knowledge of a system of 
signs already extensively adopted, and which, from 
the number of mutes among the different nations, is 
likely to be still more extensively adopted. Evea 
now voyagers and travellers profit by their use, as 
courtiers and statesmen hereafter may ; so that an 
art, introduced by charity into the cottages of the 
poor, may come to dwell in the palaces of princes ; 
and an expedient, devised by the benevolent Sicard 
to alleviate the ills resulting from deafness, may be 
employed to remedy the more diffusive ills that have 
resulted from the confusion of tongues at Babel ; 
and thus a general intercourse may be established 
among the nations, trained to this new language of 
the eye : the only language which has any prospect 
of remaining uniform or of becoming universal. 



290 TREATME^^T OF THE INSANE. 

Nor have the deaf and dumb alone shared in the 
distribution of new benefits : for the aged, eye-glasses 
have been provided ; for the maimed, artificial limbs 
have been constructed ; and to the diseased, appro- 
priate remedies have been administered. 

Maladies once deemed incurable have been 
cured. Neither vegetable nor mineral poisons, how 
ever virulent, are now uniformly mortal. Even hy- 
drophobia is said to have yielded to surgical opera- 
tion ; and vaccination, introduced by the philosophic 
Jenner, has nearly removed the terrors of one oi 
the most dreadful scourges of mankind. 

The maladies of the mind, as well as those of the 
body, are beginning to be better understood, and to 
be treated more successfully than they formerly 
were. No longer is the lunatic bound in chains or 
scourged with thongs ; nor is mental alienation any 
longer regarded as the most hopeless, because the 
most incurable of evils. 

And here it is gratifying to remark, that American 
physicians have contributed to the introduction of 
those juster views and that more benign practice 
which are destined to bless the nations. With the 
wisdom of the sage and the benevolence of the 
saint, the late lamented Rush urged the substitution 
of kindness for cruelty in the management of the 
insane. But it was reserved for another and more 
highly-favoured individual to develop, by a series of 
patient experiments, the practical benefits of such a 
substitution. 

This man, even yet unknown to fame, without 
fortune and without patronage, ventured to establish, 



Chaplin's asylum. 291 

and has for years continued to manage an asylum 
which, in its results, has surpassed, not only the asy- 
lums of other times, but of other countries ; and from 
which there has been sent back to their friends and 
to society a larger proportion of patients restored to 
reason and to happiness than from any kindred in- 
stitution now known on earth or recorded in history. 

A design so benevolent and adventurous, execu- 
ted under great discouragements, and with such in- 
comparable success, needs no present commend- 
ation ; nor will future eulogy be necessary to render 
the name of Chaplin hereafter as dear to fame as 
It is already to humanity. 

To the increase of medical skill in Britain more 
than to any other cause, perhaps, is to be attributed 
that increase in the average duration of human hfe 
which has become of late a subject of remark. 

And shall we suppose, in this conflict with mor- 
tality, because triumphs have been achieved by the 
disciples of Esculapius, that farther triumphs are 
therefore impossible ? And that to the future prac- 
titioner it only remains to mark the diagnosis of dis 
ease laid down in his textbook, and apply the rem 
edies prescribed in his dispensatory ? 

There is no greater reason for believing the mor- 
tal maladies which remain necessarily mortal, than 
there once was for believing those to be so which 
now yield to the power of medicine. Here, doubt- 
less, as elsewhere, and now as formerly, the field lies 
open ; nor will the faculty have done all that man 
requires or that God enjoins so long as a disease 
remains to be healed or a pain to be relieved. 



292 POLITICAL SCIENCE. 

Brilliant are the successes of the past ; but hope 
hghts up the future with a prospect of successes 
still more brilliant, to be continued until, by a more 
perfect knowledge of disease, a more complete de- 
velopment of remedies, a farther augmentation of 
comforts, a wiser formation of habits, and a holier 
manner of life, Pandora's box shall again be closed, 
the vigour of primitive constitution reappear, and the 
longevity of antediluvian man return. 

Let it not be deemed either visionary or profane 
to indulge such anticipations, since prophets divinely 
inspired have indulged them. Visionary or profane 
as we may deem it, the time approaches when the 
age of man shall be as the age of a tree ; and the 
inhabitants shall not say I am sick; for the mouth 
of the Lord hath spoken it. 

This may, indeed, be supernaturally induced ; but 
it is not according to the analogy of Providence that 
it should be so. Means are the instruments in ef- 
fecting man^s moral renovation, and why should they 
not be in effecting his physical renovation also? 
From misery as well as from guilt, it is his, by the 
help of God, to accomplish his own deliverance and 
to work out his own salvation. 

In political as well as in physical science, a like 
progressive development is apparent. 

The older governments were reared, and they rest 
on the right of prescription. That authority is a sacred 
deposite in the hands of the few for the control of 
the many ; that it is hereditary, and its possessor 
responsible to God alone for its exercise, has long 
been asserted by sovereigns and admitted by their 
subjects. 



SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. 293 

These ancient doctrines, for the continued main- 
tenance of which such efforts are making on the one 
Continent, are to a great extent abjured on the other. 
Not merely new, but adverse doctrines have been 
promulgated : that national sovereignty is placed in 
the aggregation of mdividual volition ; that the peo- 
ple themselves are the original source and ultimate 
depository of human authority ; and that office is a 
trust from them, reclaimable at their pleasure, and to 
be executed conformably to their will. 

These doctrines, once mere speculation, are now 
not only imbodied in form and adopted in theory, 
but millions of humem beings, scattered over exten- 
sive territories, are carrying them into effect ; and 
are making, on a mighty scale, and in behalf of the 
human race, the sublime experiment of practical 
self-government. Should this experiment succeed — 
and we trust in God it will — to say nothing of its re- 
action on Europe and Asia, nearly half the human 
race will probably, at no distant day, in America, 
participate in its blessed results. 

And yet, even in the land where this experiment 
is making, its legitimate effects are but partially ap- 
parent; for even here slavery exists, and freemen 
are attended and served by slaves. This only in- 
stitution of tyranny is a curse engendered in other 
times and under a different form of government. 
Had the opinions and wishes of the primitive colo- 
nists been consulted, such an anomaly as slavery, in 
any of its forms, could not now have had existence. 
Still its existence is not the less an evil on that ac- 



294 SLAVERY IN THE NORTHERN STATES. 

count, and an evil that we seem doomed, for the 
present at least, to retain and to deprecate. 

Thus has the most benignant form of government 
the nations ever witnessed brought no blessings with 
it to a multitude of wretched beings over whom 
Compassion weeps, but whom Compassion even can- 
not disinthral ; and whose final disinthralment Hope 
sees only in distant and dim perspective, in the light 
of some future jubilee, when domestic as well as 
civil oppression shall have ceased, and no print of 
vassal footsteps remain thereafter on freedom's soil, 
nor chain be worn beneath the sun of freedom. 

I am aware that our domestic slavery is consid- 
ered by many as merely a local evil ; and that it has 
become fashionable to think and speak of it as 
though we at the North were no way implicated in 
its guilt, or liable to be affected by that ultimate ven- 
geance it threatens to inflict. 

Is it then forgotten that slavery was once legalized 
in New-England ? or is it unknown that, till recently, 
it was legalized in New- York ? Meet we not with 
the memorials of its once greater prevalence in those 
degraded menials that still carry about with them the 
print of chains, retain the manners, and speak the 
dialect of bondage 1 If the number of blacks and 
of slaves be less at the North than at the South, we 
owe this enviable distinction to our climate, not our 
virtue. It was neither the foresight nor the piety of 
the Pilgrims, but the good Providence of God, that 
traced the lines of their inheritance on this side the 
natural limit of negro habitation. If the planter of 
the South has long appeared in the odious charac 



NEW-ENGLAND SLAVE-TRADERS. 295 

ter of receiver of stolen men^ the trader of the North 
has as long appeared in the still more odious charac 
ter o^ man- stealer. 

It must be admitted — with humiliation indeed, but 
still it must be admitted — that with New-England 
capital slave-ships have been built, and with New- 
England seamen navigated. In New-England, too, 
have stood the workshops in which those yokes and 
manacles were forged that weighed on the limbs of 
the captive negro during his passage to bondage. 
On Virginia, at least, slavery was forced contrary to 
her will and against her remonstrance. Can as 
much be said in favour of all other and more north- 
em colonies ? 

But, whatever may have been the comparative 
guilt of the parties concerned in making merchan- 
dise of men, the alarming consequence of their joint 
iniquity is sufficiently apparent in the existence 
among us of more than one million six hundred 
thousand slaves. This is an abatement of national 
prosperity connected with no alleviating circum- 
stance ; nor is there any softening light in which this 
feature in our condition can be viewed. Slavery, in 
all its forms, is odious ; in all its bearings, hurtful. 
It is an evil gratuitous and unmixed ; and equally an 
evil to the slave, his master, and the state. 

Its existence bespeaks an unnatural state of things. 
In whatever society the few lord it over the many, 
the balance of energies is disturbed ; and there will 
be a constant tendency in the system to weaken the 
preponderance of power and restore the equilibrium. 
Even in governments less popular than our own, this 



296 SLAVERY IN DESPOTIC COUNTRIES. 

tendency is apparent. Roman slavery has long 
since ceased. Feudal tyranny has passed away 
from Europe, and the condition of the serfs of Sax- 
ony and the boors of Russia is ameliorating ; and, 
though not free, they are gradually approximating 
towards freedom. 

But there are causes that render the perpetuity of 
slavery here more difficult than elsewhere, and more 
difficult in the present than in former ages. 

Domestic slavery is not abhorrent to the feelings 
of a community accustomed to political slavery, nor 
inconsistent in principle with governments founded 
on prescriptive and hereditary privilege. It harmo- 
nizes with the institutions of Tunis, Morocco, Al- 
giers, and other provinces of Turkish despotism. 
Religion there even sanctions it ; and it is felt to 
be as righteous as it is convenient, to compel the 
followers of Christ to become hewers of wood and 
drawers of water to the followers of Mohammed. 
With us it is otherwise. Slavery is here a perfect 
anomaly. It stands out by itself, an isolated insti- 
tution, unsupported, unconnected, and at variance 
with all our other institutions. It is at variance with 
the spirit of our government ; at variance with its 
letter. It is at variance with our political principles, 
at variance with our religious principles, revolting to 
our moral feelings, and crosses all our habits of 
thought and action. And can there be a question 
whether slavery, under such circumstances, in such a 
country, and among such a people, can be eternal ? 
If vilianage in Britain, and even in Gaul, has ceased 
-^4f the serfs of Saxony and the boors of Russia are 



SLAVERY ONCB UPHELD BY THE CHURCH. 297 

rising in the scale of being, and there be even hope 
that the degraded Hindu will one day be disinthral- 
led by the diffusion of science, and the slow but re- 
sistless march of public opinion, is there no hope of 
disinthralment for the African, who breathes the air, 
and sees the light, and treads the soil of freedom ? 
Impossible I such an outrage cannot be perpetual. 
The constitution of man, of nature, of heaven and 
earth must change, or slavery be subverted. It 
cannot stand against the progress of society. Its 
doom has been pronounced already ; and the for- 
ward movement of the world will overthrow it. 

Is it forgotten that slavery was once sanctioned 
by even ecclesiastical authority ? and that the cross 
and the crescent were alike arrayed on its side ? Is 
it forgotten that the negro race have been solemn- 
ly consigned to perpetual bondage by the highest 
authority in Christendom, because they never at- 
tended mass, and were of the colour of the damned ? 
And, thereafter, that centuries rolled away, during 
which Africa was considered as rightfully given up 
to plunder by Christian nations, who, without com- 
punction and without regret, conspired to ravage her 
coasts and reduce her captive sons to slavery ? 

Nor was it till our own times that the spell which 
iiad so long bound the understanding and the moral 
sense of Christendom was broken. There are those 
Jiow living who remember when the slave-trade, un- 
assailed and without an enemy, remained interwoven 
with the policy and intrenched in the prepossessions 
of every Christian nation ; when the king, and the Par- 
liament, and the people even of Britain stood firm 
Z 



298 ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

in its defence ; when, in opposition to this array of 
opinion and of power, Granville Sharp first raised 
his voice, and Clarkson, and Wilberforce, and their 
coadjutors took their stand ; and who remember, 
too, the contempt with which the first humble efforts 
of these men of mercy were regarded : efforts which 
were destined to shake, and which have already 
shaken, the system they assailed to its base, and 
changed the current of feeling throughout the world. 
The slave, of whatever cast or colour, has long since 
been declared free the moment he sets his foot on 
British soil ; and the trade in slaves, already abolish- 
ed by Britain, has been denounced by almost every 
Christian nation. 

Everywhere, as discussion has increased, the 
friends of slavery have diminished ; and results as 
memorable have been effected on this side the Atlan- 
tic as on the other. Time was when slavery sat 
as easy on the conscience of the Puritan of the 
North as of the planter of the South ; when states- 
men of the purest patriotism, and clergymen of the 
loftiest intellect New-England ever boasted, were 
found among its champions ; and when, even there, 
men of every rank as much expected their slaves 
as their lands to descend in perpetuity to their chil- 
dren. 

The slave-trade, however, has not only been abol- 
ished by the national republic, but slavery itself has 
also been abolished in the whole of New-England, 
New-Jersey, New-York, and Pennsylvania. In Del- 
aware and Maryland it is waning to its close, and in 
Virginia, though it exists in strength, yet its exist- 



PROGKESS OF PUBLIC OPINION. 299 

^ce is abhorred ; while, by the rise of kindred re- 
publics in Spanish America, it has, through vast and 
contiguous territories, suddenly ceased to exist. 

These are splendid triumphs which the march of 
public opinion has achieved. It is still on the ad- 
vance, gathering momentum as it advances. And 
the posterity of those now so intent on sustaining 
slavery will not consent to its being sustained. 

There are few enlightened patriots at the South 
who do not already abhor the system ; who do not 
regard it as an evil ; who do not desire its abolition. 
Our brethren of the South have the same sympathies, 
the same moral sentiments, the same love of liberty 
as ourselves. By them as by us, slavery is felt to be 
an evil, a hinderance to our prosperity, and a blot upon 
our character. That it exists to such a fearful extent 
among them is not the result of choice, but of ne- 
cessity. It was in being when they were born, and 
has been forced on them by a previous generation. 

Can any considerate man, in the view of what 
has been done and what is now doing, believe that, 
amid so many merciful designs, so many benevolent 
activities, the negro slave will experience no deliver- 
ance ? That the master will remain for ever undis- 
turbed by the presence of stripes and chains, and 
continue without relenting, from year to year, and 
from generation to generation, to eat the bread, and 
wear the raiment, and export the staple produced by 
the tears and sweat of bondmen 1 That the free 
and enlightened inhabitants of this proud republic 
will go on celebrating their Fourth of July, reading 
their Declaration of Independence, and, regardless 



300 CERTAIN SUBVERSION OF SLAVERY. 

of the groans of so many millions held in bondage, 
persist in the mockery of reproaching despots, of 
eulogizing republics, and holding up before the eyes 
of an insulted universe the ensign of liberty? It 
cannot be. To sustain such an abuse under such 
circumstances is impossible. There needs no do- 
mestic insurrection, no foreign interference to sub- 
vert an institution so repugnant to all our other in- 
stitutions. PubUc opinion has already pronounced 
on it ; and the moral energy of the nation will soon- 
er or later effect its overthrow. 

Already planted on the African shore is seen a 
beacon of promise. There an asylum has been 
provided, and thither the ransomed captives are be- 
ginning to return, reconveying to the land of their 
fathers both civilization and religion. These may 
be but the pioneers of a progressive civilization, to 
be continued until a continent has been reclaimed, 
and a race redeemed through the agency of our 
emancipated slaves. 

True it is that neither the trader's manacle nor 
the driver's whip is the most obvious omen of na- 
tional enlargement. It is, however, as much so as 
the yoke of Israel or the prison-house of Poti- 
phar. Nor is the way to glory for Cush through 
bondage in America more circuitous and indirect 
than it was to Israel through bondage in Egypt. 
And since the Israelite has reached the one by ma- 
king the circuit of the other, it will not be unparal- 
leled in the history of the world should the Cushite 
also. 

The civil jurisprudence of these states, retaining 



AMELIORATION OF THE CRIMINAL CODE. 301 

whatever was consonant to reason and congenial to 
liberty in the Common Law — that matchless monu- 
ment of wisdom — has silently accommodated itself 
to our new condition. 

In most of the states the despotism of creditors 
has been abridged, and the prison limits of debtors 
enlarged, and enlightened and philanthropic states- 
men are now employed in wiping from the nation 
the reproach of making misfortune penal, and ren- 
dering to honest bankruptcy the retribution of im- 
prisonment. 

Our criminal code, by repeated revision, has been 
greatly ameliorated, and is still ameliorating. 

Trial by battle has ceased ; the practice of rid- 
ding society of felons by the summary process of 
the gallows is diminished, and, by rendering penalties 
disciplinary as well as retributive, a new principle 
has been introduced ; a principle, the effects of 
which will then only be fully apparent when, by a 
more measured graduation of crime, a more judi- 
cious classification of criminals, and a more efficient 
administration of moral discipline, prisons shall have 
become retirements for contrition and schools of 
virtue, instead of being halls of ribaldry and nurseries 
of vice. Nor will farther revision be unnecessary 
until another principle shall have been introduced, 
and prevention as well as amendment rendered 
prominent in the system ; for it is not only requisite 
that criminals should be reformed, but also that 
temptations to crime should be removed, facilities 
to crime diminished, and that the children of the 
republic, at least, should be so guarded and educa- 



302 PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 

ted, that, though the aged should never be reclaimed, 
the state may, notwithstanding, be freed from the 
burden of maintaining either paupers or convicts, 
and society become purified from vagrancy and 
crime by the gradual production of a more indus- 
trious and virtuous generation. So that in this de- 
partment, also, there remain new measures for policy 
to discuss, and fields untroddren over which patriot- 
ism may expatiate. 

But there are improvements which owe their ex- 
istence not so much to the wisdom of legislation as 
to the higher wisdom of forbearing to legislate. 
That undefined boundary where utility from regu- 
lation ceases and injury begins has not always been 
regarded. 

Time w^as when even the homage man owes to his 
Maker was deemed a fit object for legal enactment 
and penal enforcement. The secret aspirations of 
the heart and the delicate workings of conscience 
were held to supervision by human inquest, and 
subjected to the rude disciphne of terrestrial courts. 
Thought itself was regulated, opinion made penal, 
and fire and sword legahzed in defence of faith. 
France and Britain, as well as Spain and Portugal, 
enforced uniformity by torture, and from dungeons 
and scaffolds addressed to dissent their rebuke. 
And, strange as it may seem, the land of those very 
Pilgrims who fled from martyrdom was itself stained 
with the blood of martyrs ! 

This most fearful of errors has at length been dis- 
covered and corrected. Cases of conscience have 
been dismissed from the courts, and penalties for 
unbelief blotted from the statute-book. Enactments 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM. 303 

against witchcraft have ceased, and prosecutions 
against witches have been discontinued ; tlie learned 
disquisitions of divines on the nature of the crime, and 
the grave distinctions of jurists in trying the offence, 
as well as the vulgar tests of water and fire in dis- 
covering the offender, have all been alike disregard- 
ed, xlnd it is satisfactory to add, that the crime of 
witch-riding, as well as the dread of being witch- 
ridden, have both disappeared with the disappearance 
of that pomp of inquest and execution which ag- 
gravated, if they did not even produce, the very evil 
they were intended to prevent. 

These happy results have been effected, not by 
the doings of statesmen, but by their abstaining 
from action : an unostentatious method of conferring 
benefits, but not the less effectual on that account ; 
and one by which still other benefits, perhaps, re- 
main to be conferred : for, whether vagrancy and 
pauperism, as did witchcraft, do not owe much of 
their thrift and increment to the stimulus of legisla- 
tion, is a problem that yet remains to be solved. 

In religion, which has been the occasion of the 
purest virtues and the blackest crimes, of the keen- 
est anguish and the holiest joys, though progress has 
been made, there is room for still farther progress. 

As yet, even Christian nations neither fully know 
the merits nor feel the benefits of the Christian sys- 
tem. Nor is it strange that they do not. For no 
sooner did the church cease to be persecuted by the 
state, than she received the impress of its form, and 
became thereafter the subject of its policy. 

The authority of priests was reared on the same 
base as that of princes. To regulate human action 



304 READING OF THE BIBLE PROHIBITED. 

was the prerogative of the one, io regulate human 
opinion that of the other. They who might not 
think, need not read. Hence, to the vassal multi- 
tude, the Bible was prohibited. A dense and fright- 
ful darkness thereafter overspread the world, of 
which the darkness of Egypt, that could be felt, 
was but an emblem. In the mean time, the soul as 
well as the body of man, under this double despo- 
tism of the altar "and the throne, became bowed to 
the dust. 

Ages elapsed before the recoil was felt and the 
Bible restored ; and even its restoration produced 
but a partial benefit. In Protestant Christendom, 
where liberty to read was granted, the book itself 
was rare ; by many it could not be procured, while 
multitudes were incapable of reading it. 

To meet this exigency, creeds and catechisms 
were compiled ; and to these the people were sent, 
to acquire a summary knowledge of the contents of 
that restored and authoritative volume. 

These manuals, though rich in doctrine, were yet 
abstract and unimpassioned in manner ; addressing 
the intellect rather than the conscience, the affections, 
the imagination, or the heart. They contained the 
real, but naked,, elements of the Christian system. 

Truths, indeed, were thus communicated; but 
they were drawn up in form and stated with brevity ; 
truths unaccompanied by that freedom of discussion, 
that variety of illustration, that freshness of colour- 
ing, that persuasiveness of motive, and general im- 
press of divinity so apparent in the sacred writings. 
Useful as these helps might have been in the ar- 
rangement of Christian knowledge already acquired, 



CREEDS AND CATECHISMS. 305 

they could never avail to an adequate acquisition ot 
that knowledge ; for they contained, at best, a mere 
skeleton of revealed religion, and not revealed religion 
herself, robed in beauty, glowing with animation, 
throbbing with life, and in the full array of those 
celestial glories which beam forth from the sacred 
canvass, on which her features are drawn with skill 
inimitable and by a pencil divine. And yet even 
children acquired their first ideas and received their 
first impressions from the study of lessons containing 
only formal propositions, systematically arranged in 
some chosen abstract of Bible truths ; and not by 
the study of those simpler and richer, as well as di- 
viner lessons of wisdom adapted to their years, ad- 
dressed to their sensibility, and presented in forms 
so alluring, and in variety so attractive, on the pages 
of the Book of God itself. 

Hence it happened that Luther, and Calvin, and 
Knox, and their revered coadjutors, while assailing 
the authority of Rome, silently established over many 
a mind a milder but a paramount authority ; nor 
was it till a later age that the bearing of that great 
principle they had assumed was fully perceived, or 
that measures were taken to render its application 
universal. 

An effort is at length making to give, not merely 
creeds compiled from the Bible, but the Bible itseJ£ 
to every family in Christendom ; nay, not only to 
every family, but even to every individual on the 
earth. 

By the joint influence of the Bible and the Sun- 
day-school, thousands o^ children are now exercising 



306 THE BIBLE AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

their understandings on the doctrines, treasuring up 
in their memories the facts, stimulating their con- 
sciences by the precepts, and staying their hopes 
on the promises of that blessed book which has 
power to make man wise unto salvation. 

Already is the result beginning to be apparent in 
the excitement of Bible sympathies and the forma- 
tion of a Bible character. Thus has an impulse 
been given to the juvenile mind training in these lit- 
tle nurseries of wisdom, which will be hereafter felt 
through all the ranks of society ; which will even re- 
act on the sanctuary and the doctors of the law; 
not only inducing a holier life, but restoring to the 
universal church a purer faith and a sounder form 
of words : the words in which the great Teacher 
himself delivered to mankind his oracles. 

It has been said that bringing the public mind into 
contact with the Bible, though it should unite opin- 
ion on obvious and important points, must, on points 
not obvious or important, call forth debate and en- 
sure division. Be it even so. Is this an evil so 
greatly to be dreaded ? 

How much crime, and blood, and treasure, has 
the attempt to coerce uniformity cost the nations ? 
How few have even yet attained it ? And when at* 
tained, what people did it ever benefit ? Has it any- 
where either promoted industry, advanced science, 
or purified morality ? 

If it be so important that the train of future 
thought should be kept for ever within the limits of 
existing forms, it were as well to resume the ancient 
mould, and again subject the operations of the 
mind to the pressure of that great moral lever, the 



RELIGIOUS UNIFORMITY, 307 

fulcrum of which has, for so many ages, been plant- 
ed at Rome. 

Apologies, indeed, have been offered for the vari- 
ety of opinion in which freedom of thought has is- 
sued. But apologies were unnecessary. A multi- 
plicity of sects, differing in faith and forms, and yet 
reciprocating kindness and dwelling together in uni- 
ty, is among the fairest features that modern Chris- 
tendom exhibits. How do the racks, and gibbets, 
and dungeons, and scaffolds, and fires, with which 
uniformity has for ages been surrounded— how do 
these compare with the mild, and tranquil, and vari- 
ed array of different Christian communities, advan- 
cing side by side towards heaven, and provoking 
one another on the way only to love and good works ! 

And is it, then, to be dreaded as so great an evil 
that, under the more diffusive influence of the Bible, 
other and yet other Christian denominations may 
arise to quicken the labours and stimulate the zeal 
of existing denominations ; to correct, perhaps, their 
errors ; to check their declension, to augment their 
means, and co-operate in the execution of their de- 
signs of goodness ? 

Notwithstanding the dogmatism of courts and 
councils, the fatal maxim that diversity of doctrine 
or worship is incompatible with social happiness and 
public safety has been at length refuted, and it is 
ours to share in the glory of its refutation. And 
who knows but, in the farther progress of Christian 
knowledge and the farther development of Christian 
principle, it may come to be universally apparent, 
that the unity of the church itself, and the only unity 
which God requires or of which he approves, consists 



308 BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF RELIGION. 

not in that outward identity of aspect which perse* 
cution has for ages been struggling to impress, but 
in an imvard oneness of spirit : a unity nowhere on 
earth more apparent than in the diveis Christian 
communities, each performing its appointed duty, 
each moving in its appropriate sphere, and all com- 
bined and harmonized in one common system of be- 
nevolent exertion, by the influence of that celestial 
charity which on earth, as in heaven, is the cement 
of society and the bond of perfectness ; and which 
requires only to be cherished and extended to ban- 
ish discord, and transform the world itself into a 
theatre of peace, in which nothing shall remain to 
molest or make afraid, as in God/s Jioly mountain. 

Religion is intimately connected with the best in- 
terests of the human race ; and every advance made 
in the knowledge of its doctrines or in the admin- 
istration of its discipline must be favourable to those 
interests. To religion, even under its pagan form, 
both art and science are indebted. It was the 
achievements of the gods that woke the harp of 
Homer ; it was the statues of the gods that employed 
the chisel of Phidias ; it was the portraitures of th^ 
gods that imbodied those touches of the pencil of 
Apelles. 

Hunger, and cold, and nakedness may call forth 
mere physical energy, but the inspirations of genius 
result from sublimer stimuli, and require both motives 
and models from an incorporeal world. Those mo- 
tives and models revelation furnishes, in a higher de- 
gree and of a holier kind than were ever elsewhere 
furnished ; and the scholar is now encouraged in hia 
efforts and in his anticipations by the indications of 



SENTIMENTS INSPIRED BY THE BIBLE. 309 

Providence as well as the language of prophecy, 
since it is impossible for him not to see, in the light 
the Bible sheds upon his prospects, that great and 
benign results must follow from the operation of that 
moral machinery which is beginning to bear upon 
the world. 

It has been truly said that science is the hand- 
maid of religion ; and it may be as truly said that 
religion, especially revealed religion, is the patroness 
of science ; for, though its direct object is to make 
man holy, in effecting this it cannot fail to make him 
wise also. Without regard to rank or condition, the 
Bible furnishes both the means and motives to im- 
provement, in whatever language it is read, and far 
as its editions circulate. Imbodying a system of 
history the most authentic and the most ancient, a 
system of morals the most pure, and of theology 
the most sublime, it carries this epitome of universal 
truth to every cottage, bringing its quickening and 
mighty influence to bear on the native elements of 
individual character, as they exist in all the varieties 
of a changeful and scattered population. Its spe- 
cimens of composition are as finished as its maxims 
of wisdom are profound. The study of it, there- 
fore, must tend to purify the taste as well as the 
heart, to fix the habit of investigation, and to sharpen 
the appetite for knowledge : nor is it possible that 
any kindred or nation should continue either igno- 
rant or degraded among whom the Bible has been 
distributed, and by whom it is studied and revered ; 
and it is now perceptible that the sphere it fills is 
rapidly enlarging, and that the influence it exerts is 
becoming more extensive and decided* 



310 DIFFUSION OF THE BIBLE. 

We pa&s onward, therefore, to encounter new dif- 
ficulties and to achieve new triumphs with increased 
confidence, inasmuch as religion is bringing fresh 
auxiliaries to our aid, and experience supplying new 
proofs that God is on our side. It can no longer 
be a question whether the world is to be filled with 
other knowledge, since it is about to be filled with 
the knowledge of his word. 

There was a time when priests alone were capa- 
ble of reading, and when even many of them pos- 
sessed not the Bible. Now its entire text is stereo- 
typed in different languages, and the press in many 
a land is perpetually employed in throwing off* new 
copies of the history of Moses, the dramatic com- 
positions of Job, the Lyrics of David, the Proverbs 
of Solomon, the Prophecies of Isaiah, the Lamenta- 
tions of Jeremiah, and the piercing rebuke of Zeph- 
aniah and Habakkuk ; together with whatever else of 
wisdom and goodness, of grace and mercy, of beau- 
ty and grandeur, either the prophets or evangelists 
contain. Agents, too, are actively employed in scat- 
tering these productions among every caste, and 
wide as the race of men are scattered. 

And is it to be believed that the Scriptures of both 
Testaments are to be read by the millions of the hu- 
man family, and yet those millions continue to groan 
in bondage and grovel in ignorance 1 Where has 
the Bible ever entered that arts and science, that mu- 
sic, and painting, and sculpture, and poetry, and elo- 
quence have not followed in its train] Nowhere: 
nor will it hereafter. 

Within the limits traced by its circulation, even 
now is found all that renders life a blessing and being 



OBLIGATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 311 

desirable ; but cross those limits, and you leave be- 
hind you whatever is lofty and endearing, and you 
see around you only that which is debased and re- 
volting. 

To the Bible science owes a mighty debt, which 
the friends of science should be neither reluctant to 
acknowledge nor slack to pay. Nor is it only on 
account of the aid it gives to other science, but also 
on account of that science which itself alone con- 
tains, that we are called upon to array ourselves 
among its advocates and its defenders. 

The advance of political science will, it may be 
hoped, ameliorate the sufferings, multiply the com- 
forts, extend the privileges, and elevate the character 
of man. The world itself may perchance become a 
republic in government as well as letters. Progress 
in the arts may increase the efficacy of remedies, 
diminish the inveteracy of diseases, and prolong the 
duration of life. Still death will be not the less 
dreadful, since it will be not the less inevitable. 
There is a hmit to everything but omnipotence ; and, 
however skill may delay, it cannot prevent man's 
ultimate mortality. 

The grave is, and, in spite of all our efforts, will 
continue to be, as appointed, the house of all living. 
No elixir that will render man immortal remains by 
future analysis to be revealed. Nor is there any 
hope that synthetic chymistry will, in its progress, 
reverse the process of final dissolution, recompose 
the ashes of the urn, and reproduce those fabrics de- 
moHshed by death. In the mean time, shadowy 
forms satisfy not the fabled inhabitants even of Elys- 
ian fields ; nor has philosophy been able to discover 



j¥ 



312 UNION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 

a more substantial residence, or song to inspire a 
less visionary hope. 

After all, it is the Bible, and the Bible only, that 
meets the case, and supphes a remedy to the mis- 
eries of man. Its siiblimer chymistry, distancing 
our puny efforts and dissipating our childish fears, 
reveals a process by which the desolations oi a thou- 
sand generations shall in a moment be repaired, and 
heaven enriched with new forms of beauty, repro- 
duced immortal from the ruins of the sepulchre. 

Astronomy, indeed, has disabused reason of many 
a superstition, and extended to many an unknown 
orb the range of human vision ; but no star which 
the telescope reveals casts so benign or cheering a 
light across a benighted sinner's pathway as the Star 
of Bethlehem ; nor does any sun guide up the eye 
of man to a firmament so high, so holy, or so endu- 
ring, as that made visible by the Sun of Righteous- 
ness. 

Let us, then, hereafter connect Jerusalem with 
Athens ; entwine the ivy of Parnassus around the 
cedar of Lebanon ; weave into the wreath of flow- 
erets plucked from the Vale of Tempe, the rose ol 
Sharon, and remember at our festivals that among 
the hills of Palestine there is a hill of tenderer in- 
terest and of higher hope than either Ida or Olympus. 
Yes : let us plant the bauner of religion in the vesti- 
bule of science ; nor feel that our object is accom* 
p.ished iiW we shiili have rendered her temple, al< 
ready sacred to Truth, sacred also to Devotion. 

THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



t 



i 



